Naruto Uchiha:The prodigal son
by trystanr
Summary: What if naruto was born into the uchiha family, but still had the kyuubi inside him. What kind of adventures would he get up to? Who would he be with? These questions will be answered in this story of Naruto Uchiha. rated M for language and scenes later. In the process of revising the first five chapters with my new beta gilamonsterx3. Shout out to her for all of the help so far.
1. The prologue

Naruto Uchiha: The Prodigal Son

**Prologue: **

Twelve years ago:

It was late at night in the middle of the forest outside of the Leaf Village. The wind was blowing and the moon was out. It seemed just like any other night, however the roars of a demon fox and shouts of misery and pain that echoed through the night clearly showed the difference between this night and a normal night.

A chuunin was dragging a boy toward the village. "We have to get you to one of the safe places in the Hokage's monument!" said the chunin that was dragging the boy, who was also in charge of escorting the people that were too weak to fight the Kyuubi to safety.

The boy he was dragging wrestled desperately against the chuunin's grip. "No, my mom and dad are still fighting back there!" screamed young Iruka Umino frantically, as said chunin was practically dragging him away from the massacre. Screams of torment and sorrow were heard all over the leaf village while the glow of fire enacted an eerie glow upon the village. Blood splattered against the earth as a tree branch impaled a random civilian. The buildings that were close by were in shambles. The ninja of the leaf were fighting as hard as they could against the giant fox.

Meanwhile, in a huge puff of smoke, the Fourth Hokage appeared right between the fighting ninja and the Kyuubi, standing on Gamabunta, the chief toad's head. The Fourth had thick blonde spiky hair; it hung loosely down the sides of his face. He was wearing his hokage jacket that hung down to his knees. It said "Fourth Hokage" on the back in kanji. Other than that he had the standard jonin flak jacket and blue cargo pants on. He quickly told Gamabunta to hold the fox off until he got back, while he summoned Gamaken and Gamahiro to help him out. He vanished in a flash of light using his signature move, the Hiraishin. The toads started their long and intense battle with the fox. The ninja around could only watch in awe until a random jonin shouted, "give them all the support we can, hit that damned fox with everything you've got!" The ninja started to fire off all sorts of elemental jutsu at the fox to little or no avail.

The Fourth reappeared a couple seconds later next to his two best friends, Fugaku and Mikoto Uchiha, and Mikoto was giving birth for the second time in less than an hour. Sweat dripped down her face as she strained against the pain of childbirth. Minato looked at Fugaku guiltily, "I'm so sorry that it has come to this you two. I wasn't able to stop the Kyuubi from being reborn after mine and Kushina's child was born." Minato's wife had given birth six hours ago to a stillborn blonde child. "Minato its okay we're giving our second son to you because we know what's at stake, and when you return him to us we will raise him as a normal boy just like we did with Itachi and will do with his twin, Sasuke." Fugaku said gently, knowing the pain his friend must be going through despite how he was keeping it together. "We know that you did everything in your power to keep this from happening, its okay we don't blame you."

Minato, who was visibly shaking calmed down when he heard his friend's words and finally spoke, "I'm still sorry for doing this to you, my friend, how is your wi—" he was cut short when Mikoto screamed out, "OH MY GOD THIS IS KILLING ME!" Minato and Fugaku rushed over her and Fugaku tried calming her with soothing words. "It's going to be okay, honey. You're doing great", but Mikoto only responded by screaming even more. Her coal black hair was soaked in sweat and so were most of her clothes. She had her fully developed sharingan active the entire time without knowing it. She gripped the sheets and yelled, "I'M GOING TO KILL YOU FOR DOING THIS TO ME FUGAKU!" Uchiha paled and started to worry for his own safety.

Then they heard it. "Waaaah, Waaah" It was the unmistakable sound of a newborn baby crying. They all smiled knowingly. "Can we see him?" Mikoto and Fugaku asked the nurse of the Uchiha clan. "Of course you can", she said. The Uchiha nurse brought the baby up to Mikoto and laid him into her arms. That was when she noticed that he had a full head of spiky black hair, unlike her other two boys, who had hardly any when they were born. He also had dark deep emerald green eyes, which was unheard of for an Uchiha. She looked at him in wonder and amazement as she noticed this and wondered how in the world her son had those eyes. _'He will be very unique and strong, I can already tell'_, she thought to herself proudly. Fugaku was looking at the raven haired boy in wonder as well before Minato looked at them both sadly. They noticed this and looked back at him with solemn looks in their coal black eyes.

Mikoto nodded slightly at her blonde best friend at the other side of the room, who nodded back, as she passed out of exhaustion. She had no idea how the decision she was making would impact the world. She only hoped it would be for the best. Minato picked the boy up tenderly and disappeared in the same flash of golden light that he appeared in.

Minato took the small boy to the already prepared tent, looked at him smiling. He laid him down gently in the small baby bed that was already there and stepped outside. The baby boy started crying softly wanting to feel the warmth of someone. He looked at the ANBU and told him to look after the young raven haired boy. He then used Hiraishin to transport himself back to the battle in that familiar flash of light. When Minato arrived at the battle he saw that only Gamabunta was the only toad left fighting the fox and was barely holding his own. Minato guessed that the other toads were desummoned back to Mount Myōboku.

Minato shunshined back on top of Gamabunta's head and said to him, "You ready Chief Toad?" The toad nodded and Minato jumped high into the air. In the air the fourth and two shadow clones readied his most powerful jutsu. The Kyuubi was still thrashing at the land below Minato thanked Kushina for helping him perfect it and hurled the giant wind shuriken at the fox. The only sound that could be heard for miles when it hit was high and piercing, just like millions of needles stabbing into flesh, going faster than the wind. Minato wasn't done yet though, "You're done for Kyuubi!" Minato shouted as he finished the hand signs for the jutsu that would end his life. "Sealing Art: Death God Seal," the blonde murmured and a ghoulish figure with a scythe phased into existence, from out of the abyss.

"Who or what do you wish to seal", it asked in a deep and resonating voice. Minato pointed to the Kyuubi, who was lying on the ground below too tired to fight anymore. "You know the consequences, correct?" Minato nodded solemnly. "Bring me to the vessel, then."

Minato nodded again and led it to the tent in which the boy was sound asleep. He stopped right outside the tent and told the ANBU stationed there to give Fugaku a letter when he delivered the boy. The fourth walked and the Shinigami floated into the tent. The Shinigami then proceeded with the sealing. Minato put up a sound suppressing barrier, so that the people outside would not hear the boy's loud wailing. The essence, chakra, and soul of the Kyuubi were all sealed into the raven haired boy in a short time.

When the sealing was finished, the Shinigami asked if Minato was ready and Minato only nodded. The Shinigami raised his scythe and pierced the Fourth right through the heart. The toads on mount Myōboku had tears in their eyes as they felt their student and friend's essence leave the world of the living.

When Mikoto woke up she noticed that there was an ANBU at the door holding a small baby cradle. Fugaku was standing with him, and he had a grim look on his face. Mikoto could hear the faint crying of the small boy. She motioned for him to give the cradle to her and the ANBU walked to her and held it out for her to take it. She gingerly took her son in her arms as the man spoke.

"The Fourth asked me to give you this letter, Fugaku, but I believe he wanted you both to read it together. I have other duties to attend to so I bid you farewell", ANBU said and vanished in a swirl of leaves. They both looked at their naked son's stomach, noticing the complex seal on his small stomach.

Mikoto and Fugaku slowly opened the letter. Mikoto read it aloud quietly:

_Dear Mikoto and Fugaku,_

_If you are reading this letter then I am dead and the Kyuubi has been sealed inside your son. I_ _am so sorry it has come to this. My reasons for writing this letter are that I have three requests for you, and I also have something to tell you. I wish to tell you how sorry I am, I know that I've told you many times but it still doesn't help. I am so sorry that this has happened._

_The first request is that you name the boy Naruto for me, the name Naruto comes from a book that my sensei Jiraiya wrote about a man that never gives up and works to bring true peace to the world. I believe that Naruto will grow into the name and fulfill the legacy that the name has left unto him. He will be a great man someday._

_The second request is that you tell him about what's inside of him at a young age so that he will know why the villagers give him such harsh looks, which I have no doubt that they will, but also tell him that he is keeping the village safe from the demon, and that he should be proud of it. I will tell Sarutobi to tell the villagers as such but I don't think that it will be as anyone hopes._

_My third and final request is that you teach him my favorite jutsu, the rasengan. I would like for you to let my sensei train him in this jutsu and maybe more if he learns well. I know what every woman thinks of Jiraiya, Mikoto, but if you warn Naruto about him before hand, I don't think that he will influence your son like that._

_Now to what I have to tell you, I have received word from Jiraiya that Madara is still alive and I can confirm it, as I fought him right before the Kyuubi attacked and I have reason to believe that he is the cause for it. It seems that he is gathering followers, so be on lookout for him. I know it is hard to believe and we may both be wrong but I ask that you watch your backs and make sure that he is taken care of._

_Your Friend,_

_Minato Namikaze_

Mikoto looked at Fugaku with her eyes wide. '_What the hell, how can he still be alive?' _She thought to herself. He looked back and she knew he was thinking the same thing. "Get some rest honey; I'm sure that both you and naruto need it. She nodded and slowly fell asleep with her son in her arms. Fugaku smiled gently and picked his son up holding him close as he sat in the chair next to the hospital bed that had been prepared in the compound for his wife. The boy slowly stopped whimpering and his father knew that he was asleep. '_This boy is going to have a long and hard life'_, he thought grimly.

Mikoto and Fugaku fell asleep with their sons sleeping soundly next to them in the baby cradles that the Uchiha nurses had prepared for the birth. The two of them held each other tightly as they slept. They had various dreams between the four of them. The room was completely silent until the next morning as the sun rose in the sky. The two adults woke up to Naruto and Sasuke crying. They tried to calm them down. Fugaku picked up Naruto and Mikoto picked up Sasuke. They cradled their boys until they both stopped crying. They looked over to each other smiling, knowing that they would have an amazing time raising these two boys in the ninja way.

**A/N: This is the finished chapter 1 of The Prodigal Son. I hope you all enjoy. i will be updating all of the chapters and putting up a new chapter hopefully within the week.**


	2. Kyuubi

**A/N-for future purposes I am saying this now and I probably won't say it again because I find it to be troublesome. I do not own Naruto or any of the other elements in this story.**

**A/n- sorry the last chapter was so short the chapters from now on will be at 2k words, 10k at the most. Thanks for the reviews. I don't condone flaming but if it helps me then it's okay. I'm kind of new at this stuff so be patient. Now on to the story! Oh and I'm skipping the first few years of Naruto's life as of right now he is 7 years old, every chapter or couple of chapters he will have a birthday until he is out of the academy.**

**A/n i am currently revising this story and changing some of the chapters around. once i am done chapter five will be out. I have put 2 and 3 together and am revising four. **

**Chapter 2: Training and Ramen**

Naruto woke up slowly. He sat up and looked around his room. It was mostly plain except for his bed and the desk against the wall. He got up and went into the bathroom to start his daily routine. He got into the shower and found that the water was freezing. "What the hell, Sasuke, why is the water so cold?!" he yelled loud enough for his brother to hear him from down the hall. The two boys had grown close over the last seven years.

"I don't know Naruto I haven't taken a shower yet", Sasuke yelled back. He started to get ready himself, getting his clothes ready for his shower. He also placed everything he thought he would need for the day in a pile next to his door.

Naruto got out of the shower and finished his routine. He went to the dining room to find that everybody except Sasuke was already there. "Hey mom, what's for breakfast", he asked happily.

"Well, we have some bacon and eggs, or you can make yourself something", his mother said.

He sat down and helped himself to some food. The family held a light conversation until Fugaku announced that he would be teaching them fire style jutsu right after breakfast. Needless to say the twins were ecstatic.

After they finished eating Fugaku took them down to the dock to teach them the Fire style: Fireball jutsu. First he taught them the hand signs, "Okay, now I want you do those hand signs and inhale while you're doing it, when you are finished with the hand signs I want you to say Fire style: Fireball jutsu and exhale fast, can you do that?" They both nodded eagerly and started doing the hand signs.

Neither of them had luck on their first few tries, but on the fourth try Naruto exhaled and a small fireball came out of his mouth. "Wow that was awesome!" he said, and continued to practice. Each time the fireball got a little bigger, until it caused steam to roll off the water. "There you go Naruto you've got it now", Fugaku said to Naruto.

Sasuke got it not long after that and Fugaku praised him for it.

For the next few months Naruto and Sasuke trained at the dock diligently at controlling the fireball jutsu. Soon they could both control exactly how long or wide it was. It was at that time that Fugaku came to check up on them and he was impressed at how easily they both were getting the hang of it.

Fugaku also taught them two other jutsus, Fire style: Fire dragon jutsuand Fire style: Phoenix flower jutsu. They learned them both quickly, so Fugaku told them, "Keep practicing those three and once you turn eight I will teach you more."

Naruto and Sasuke's birthday was fast approaching and when they turned eight they would be able to go to the academy. Neither of them could wait for that fateful day.

They kept training the three jutsu and Itachi helped them with their other training. This consisted of wearing 10lbs weights at all times, accuracy training with weapons, as well as taijutsu training. They sparred with each other every day and on weekends they rested.

The day had finally come, it was October 10th and they were so happy. They got up, got dressed and raced downstairs towards the door. "What's the rush boys", Mikoto said when she saw them.

"Mom, don't you remember, today's our birthday we're both eight now! It's awesome!" they said at the same time.

"Of course I remembered now come get some breakfast" she said. They all went in to the dining room and there was a huge cake on the table. "Is that for us", Naruto asked in amazement.

"Yeah it's for you both, it is your birthday after all," Itachi said and cut a piece of the cake for them both. "Here you go," he said. Itachi gave one piece to Naruto and one to Sasuke.

The cake was so delicious that it was almost gone by the time they were done. They both loved it. Fugaku told Naruto to come to his room; he had something to tell him and that it was very important. Naruto got up and walked with his dad to his room.

"Son do you know why we have forbidden you to leave the Uchiha Compound unless we are with you," Fugaku asked and Naruto shook his head. "It's because if you left without us, the villagers would probably physically hurt you, even though they don't know you."

"Why," Naruto asked.

"Because you have something inside you that tried to attack the village eight years ago. Naruto I want you to try to meditate and see if you can enter your mindscape. When you can do that you can leave this room and come and talk to me about it," He replied.

"**My mind set? What do you mean" Naruto asked not understanding what his father was asking him to do. "Just close your eyes and relax, concentrate. It may be a little difficult at first but I know you can do it" Fugaku said with an encouraging smile. **

Naruto tried concentrating on himself and the result was a big headache. He tried again and found himself inside a dark sewer-like tunnel; he walked forward for a bit until he found himself in a huge room with a cage in it. The floor was covered in water much like the rest of the dark sewer.

He heard a low growling sound inside the cage and he walked up to it wondering what could have made that sound. Taking a few more steps he found himself in front of cage face to face with a giant red fox. He looked closer and noticed that the fox had nine tails.**"Why have you come here you Uchiha scum,"** it asked angrily.

"Well this is my mindscape so I have a right to be here, but what I don't know is why are _you_ here?" he asked confidently. "**Take a closer look at the cage boy I am sealed here. The Fourth Hokage sealed me here eight years ago after that bastard Madara Uchiha made me attack The Leaf Village."**"Wait, so you didn't attack on purpose," he asked.

"**No I was happily sealed inside a woman named Kushina and he attacked her in her sleep with his Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan."**_"So that's why you hate my clan,"__** he asked the beast in front of him. **_"I have to go talk to my father about something I'll come back and talk to you in a little while." Naruto exited his mindscape.

He walked to his father's room to find him sitting at his desk going over some papers. "Dad I talked to the fox demon and he was mad at first that I was an Uchiha but then he calmed down and told me something very important about why he attacked the village," he said watching the look of horror on his father's face.

"So you actually talked to him," he asked.

"The demon also said that he was happy inside a lady before me, then a guy named Madara got him out and used his Mayen...something against him to control him." His dad looked at him in a shocked expression. "Uh...dad? Are you okay? Who's Madara? Why did you tell me all of this?"

"I told you because I made a promise to the Fourth, who was my best friend, and because you are going to the academy this year. I didn't want you to not know why the villagers hated you, I also wanted you to know that it's a good thing that he's inside of you because you're keeping him from getting out and attacking again," Fugaku said. He looked very worried. "Madara was once the most powerful Uchiha alive. He had control over the sharingan like no one else. If the fox says that he is the one responsible for the attack, then we have a lot to worry about. You shouldn't be worried though son. Everything will be alright."

"Thank you dad, for telling me this. I am going to talk to him again so I'll talk to you in a little while," Naruto said and entered his mindscape.

The Kyuubi was waiting for him to get there, and when he did the beast said, "**I was listening in on your conversation with your father and he is a good man, I realize now that not all Uchiha are bad. Do you want to learn how to use your Sharingan, and in return I have some rules for it. If you break these rules then I will seal your dojutsu forever, got that."**

"Yeah I got it, now what are the rules and how would you seal my eyes?" Naruto asked curiously.

**"****Rule number one, you must not copy another's jutsu unless I say it's okay. I don't believe in gaining power without working for it. Rule number two, you must never use the sharingan against me. Rule number three, don't be an ass about having power, it's annoying. And for your question about how I would seal your eyes, I am the creator of the Sharingan so I can honestly do whatever I want with it, to an extent. Come over here, Naruto."**The Kyuubi explained to the boy what his rules were and Naruto nodded, understanding them for the most part.

Naruto walked over to the cage and the Kyuubi put one of his claws gently on each of Naruto's eyes and when he opened them they were crimson with one black tomoe in each eye.**"Now leave this place and open your eyes, your father is getting worried."**

Naruto did as he was told and his father gasped when he saw his son's eyes.

"Son, who activated your Sharingan" Fugaku asked although he already knew the answer. "Oh the Kyuubi did it for me, isn't it great" Naruto said excitedly.

"Yes it is, son" Fugaku replied. "So what else did the Kyuubi tell you?"

"Well he said that he was the creator of the Sharingan—"at that point he was pulled back into his mindscape. The Kyuubi said, "**Don't tell him about the rules and ask him if he knows the ****Shadow Clone Jutsu****. If he says yes then I want you to copy it then perform it, because I want to talk to him about something and that will allow me to do so." **Naruto nodded and left his mindscape.

"Hey dad, do you know the shadow clone jutsu" he asked. "Yeah why" his father replied. "Kyuubi wants to talk to you and he says that if I copy that jutsu then he will be able to. He says it important." He replied back.

_**His father reluctantly did the jutsu and Naruto copied it. He tried unsuccessfully to perform it the first time. He tried once again and was met with a half dead looking version of himself. After the third try he finally got it, and summoned one clone of himself. Fugaku was surprised to say the least. Some chunin could do this skill and yet his seven year old son could! He didn't show it though, he didn't want Naruto to start getting an ego. After Naruto finally was able to do it he poured some of the kyuubi's chakra into the clone and it changed forms.**_ What it looked like now was a black haired version of the Fourth Hokage. Fugaku gasped, "Why do you look like that?!" He was assuming that it was the Kyuubi.

"I look like this because the Fourth put so much chakra into sealing me that it changed my human appearance, as for the hair that was you son's doing, although it probably wasn't intentional. **Personally I like this appearance because Minato's wife was my previous vessel and I had enjoyed his company. Sometimes she would let me talk to him through the seal. He was a very intelligent and interesting man. **Now that that's over, Naruto I need to talk to your father so go train with Sasuke or something" the Kyuubi said in a voice that sounded like what Naruto would sound like when he got older. Then he practically pushed Naruto out of the room and shut the door.

'_Ok…that was a little weird. Sooo… what to do now' _ Naruto thought to himself, as he was walking toward his brother's room. "Sasuke do you wanna spar with me, I'm bored" he asked when he got inside the room. "Sure, why not" and they went to the Uchiha's training grounds.

When they got to the training grounds they took their respective positions across from each other, and bowed. Sasuke ran at Naruto, while doing hand signs, he inhaled, jumped up and yelled, "Fire style: Phoenix Flower Jutsu" and about ten small balls of fire shot out of his mouth at Naruto.

Naruto dodged and did the hand signs for his own jutsu. "Fire style: Fireball" he screamed and blew a huge fireball at his brother. Sasuke dodged most of it but if he went to the left any more he would run into a tree, he realized this so he jumped up and the jutsu only lightly singed his feet.

He got to the ground only to find his bother waiting for him, he blocked a punch and threw one of his own and it connected with Naruto's face. Naruto flew backward a few feet and landed on the ground. Sasuke walked to him and helped him up.

"I think that's enough for the day" Itachi said as he walked out of the trees. "You guys shouldn't be sparring so hard, you are brothers, ya know. Now let's get you to mother so she can heal your wounds so you'll be ready to start at the academy tomorrow."

"Okay" the twins said at the same time and ran towards the house.

"What have you two been doing for the past half hour, you're cover in cuts and bruises" Mikoto scolded when she saw them. "We were sparring mother. Sorry, I guess we went a little too rough." She gestured for them to come over to her. "Well, let me heal your wounds" she said and did the hand sign for medical jutsu and proceeded with healing said wounds.

Naruto went to his room to find that the kyuubi clone was sitting on his bed patiently wait for him. "Hey kyuubi, how did your talk with dad go" he asked. "We will talk in your mindscape, but before that I need to talk to you for a minute. I need a new name, if someone heard you talking to me while I am like this there would be consequences for you and I honestly don't want that. Think of one and say it out loud."

Naruto thought for a minute or two. "is Minabi okay" he asked aware of his fondness for the Fourth. "Yes now hurry up and dispel me already so that we can continue this conversation in your mindscape" Minabi said impatiently.

Naruto did as he was told and entered his mindscape. Minabi was in his cage waiting when he got there. "So what did you and dad talk about, Minabi" Naruto asked. "Well we talked about a lot of things but the thing we talked about most was you and Sasuke. It seems he wants you to each specialize in a different jutsu. For you it will be a technique that the fourth created. But for Sasuke it seems that he wants him to master and perfect the jutsu that he created himself. When you start the academy tomorrow I will tell you more.

Naruto exited his mindscape and went to sleep wandering about what the jutsu was going to be.


	3. The Academy

**A/n_ this should be a long chapter because it going to be about the academy years now onto the story. Sorry for the late update I should have another just as long Monday. That will probably be my regular update day for this story.**

**Chapter 4: The Academy**

Naruto woke up the next morning, excited as ever for his first day at the Academy. He got up, took a shower brushed his teeth and headed downstairs for breakfast. "Took you long enough, little brother"Sasuke said when he stepped into the dining room "Hey, only by like ten minutes" he retorted.

"Sit down and eat, you're gonna be late," Mikoto said. "Ok," they said and sat down. After they were finished eating, they gathered the things that they would need for their first day, said goodbye to their parents and left for the academy.

They walked for about fifteen minutes before they arrived at the gate into the Uchiha Compound. As soon as they left the gate, naruto noticed it. It was the villagers; they stared at him with eyes that were filled with hate. It made him want to break down and cry, but then he remembered what his dad told him the day before. So he kept his head held high, he just hoped it wouldn't be like that every day. They walked for a little while and talked lightly about how they thought their day was going to be like.

They noticed that there were shops lining the street; shops for everything from ninja tools to clothes, there were even shops for food. Naruto smelled some food coming from a little one on the end called Ichiraku's Ramen. "Hey Sasuke, lets go there for lunch" Naruto said while pointing to the small shop. "Ok, it sure smells good," his brother replied.

They walked some more and found themselves at the academy. They stood at the gate for a few minutes, admiring the grandeur of it, before walking in. they found their teacher Iruka Umino, and he gave naruto a puzzled look. The look on his face changed, when naruto said hello, to a smile and he walked them both into the classroom.

"good morning class, today we have two new students, naruto and sasuke uchiha, say hello," Iruka said to the class. The class said hello, and the twins went to pick their seats. Iruka told them to sit wherever they wanted, so Naruto chose a seat beside who he thought was a really pretty girl.

She had kind of short bluish-black hair and wore a really loose tan hoodie and blue ninja shorts. Sasuke looked around the room again before sitting down by himself in the back. Iruka announced to the class that they would be learning about the Leaf's history. He launched into a huge lecture about how the Leaf was built.

Every once in a while he would ask a question and the class would answer. Naruto found out when Iruka called roll that the girl he was sitting be side's name was Hinata, but he was so busy taking notes that he couldn't look at her, he didn't even notice that she was looking at and blushing when class let out for lunch.

For lunch they went to the place they were talking about that morning. When they walked in the owner greeted them and asked what they were having. Naruto looked at the menu and decided on miso pork ramen, Sasuke chose chicken ramen. When they got their food, Naruto took one bite and knew that he was going to be coming here often. "What's your name old man," he asked the owner. "It's Teuchi, and this is Ayame" he said while pointing to the young girl standing beside him. "Well I'm going to come here every day for lunch, it's so good" Naruto said and finished eating. When they were done eating they said their goodbyes and headed back to class.

The rest of the day was pretty boring. Iruka would go over something in the textbook and then quiz them on it while it was still fresh in their minds. It was never hard, though Naruto thought that Iruka was a very good teacher and listened to everything he said. At the end of class Iruka announced that they would be learning about the different kinds of weapons in a ninja's arsenal, the next day, and then dismissed the class.

As the rest of the students filed out of the classroom Iruka called Naruto back. "Hey Naruto," He said "How come I've never seen you before today?" "I've never left the Uchiha compound before today, so that is probably why." Naruto said politely. "But why?" Iruka asked. "Dad wanted to protect me from the villagers" Naruto explained, "So he didn't let me leave the compound until I was old enough to understand why they hated me." "Oh" Iruka said dumbly before Naruto walked out the door and headed home.

When Naruto got home he went straight upstairs to his room and closed the door. He sat on his bed and entered his mindscape to continue his conversation from the night before with Minabi. "Hello kit, how was your first day?" Minabi asked when Naruto arrived inside his sewer like mindscape. "It was good; I got to sit by a really pretty girl." Naruto said. "Oh really, well that's good" Minabi said. "Now, I know what you are going to ask and I can't tell you anything about the jutsu that you are going to learn, but your father did tell me that I can teach you one fire style jutsu of my choice. So I'm going to teach you a jutsu that hasn't been seen for about a century. It is called the Fire style: Flame dragon bomb and we need to be in an empty training ground really far away from any buildings, so go ask your father about it."

Naruto ran downstairs and asked his dad about a training ground. "I do know of one, it's called training ground 44, but you will have to wait until Friday because of school and you will have to take Itachi and Sasuke with you because it's dangerous in there. I will tell them that you are going camping." His dad said.

The rest of the week flew by. On Tuesday they learned about weapons like shuriken, kunai, and a bunch of other kinds. On Wednesday they learned about Ninjutsu and Iruka was impressed that Naruto and Sasuke knew a few jutsu and asked if they would spar in front of the class and of course they said yes.

They went to their respective positions and bowed. Minabi had told Naruto about the first part of the flame dragon bomb, which was just a simple fire dragon, the night before. So Naruto did Shadow Clone Jutsu to distract him. The 3 clones attacked Sasuke while Naruto continued doing hand signs. "Fire Style: Fire Dragon Jutsu" Naruto yelled before releasing an adult sized dragon from his mouth. Sasuke dodged and did a Phoenix Flower Jutsu with only two hand signs, Naruto dodged and was about to do one more jutsu, but Iruka interrupted him. "That's enough boys" he said. "That was a great match you two, some Chuunin can't even do some of those jutsu, you know, you should be proud. Alright class, that was ninjutsu, and tomorrow we will be learning about genjutsu, or illusions" He said.

They did indeed learn about genjutsu, but since no one knew anything about it, they had to learn the hard performed a low-level Hell Viewing technique on them and the room was filled with screams. Iruka didn't want the other teachers to worry, so he undid the genjutsu right before class ended.

It was Friday finally. Naruto went straight to school after breakfast. They learned about taijutsu, or hand to hand combat. Iruka told them to get into pairs and spar. Naruto flattened his opponent, a chunky boy by the name of Choji. Naruto helped him up and told him it was a good fight, they spent the rest of the class talking together with a lazy boy named Shikamaru.

After class they raced home to get their camping gear and Itachi. When they got their gear, Itachi lead them to the training ground. It took them about a half a day to get to the training ground. When they arrived at the overgrown forest of a cage, the twins exclaimed "Wow this place is huge!" "Yeah I know, this is training ground 44, but some people call it the forest of death, though" Itachi told them "why?" they asked curiously. "You'll see why when we get inside, come on lets go" Itachi said and opened the nearest gate into the forest.

They followed him inside the sinister forest. They walked until it started getting dark, which was about a mile in. They fought wild animals the whole way there. Itachi told them to setup camp and go gather firewood. When they finished setting up camp, and had a fire going, they sat down by the fire and waited while Itachi got food. "Brother, why do the villagers look at you like they hate you" Sasuke asked.

**A/n- That is where I'm going to end this chapter because my sis is getting tired of typing, god I love a good cliffhanger. Hope you guys stay tuned for my next chapter. **


	4. The Forest of Death!

**A/N- This is the beta read chapter four. I hope you all enjoy :) Chapter 5 should be out sometime this week, its being beta read now.**

** A/N- I do not and will not ever own Naruto.**

Itachi sat down beside the twins while they waited on the food to cook. "Naruto, you look like you have something on your mind, what's up" he asked his brother who seemed like he was deep in thought. "Brother do you want to know the real reason why we're out here? I'm sure you've probably guessed by now that there is another reason why we are camping." Naruto said and Itachi nodded. "Well before I can tell you, I have to let you both in on a little known secret about me." Naruto continued to tell them everything he knew about Minabi and that he was housed inside him. He also told them why they were out there in the forest. Sasuke was a little jealous at first because Naruto got to learn a new technique and he didn't, but Itachi told him that he would help him activate his sharingan, so Sasuke didn't say anything else about it.

The meat was finished cooking so they ate and went to sleep. Itachi stayed up and put everything perishable away in a scroll so that they would be able to eat it later. _'I wonder how long he's known about the kyuubi' _he thought. He used the shadow clone jutsu and told the clone to stay up and keep watch throughout the night. Then he went to sleep in his tent. Everything went fine the first night. Itachi woke up the next morning, got up, and dispelled his clone. He walked to the boys' tent and woke them up.

They got up pretty quickly, and when they were all by the campfire Naruto used shadow clone jutsu so that Minabi could come out. Itachi was so surprised that he fell right out of the chair he was in and landed on Sasuke's foot. "OUCH!" Sasuke exclaimed.

"Naruto who is this and where did you learn that jutsu?" Itachi asked.

"Oh, dad taught it to me and this is Minabi." Naruto said casually.

"Yes, I'm the big beastie inside him that everyone is scared of." Minabi said with a foxy grin on his face. "Come, kit, so that I can teach you the rest of the jutsu. Oh and Itachi, I can help you with that little problem concerning your eyes, if you'd like. We will talk later." He walked farther into the clearing and Naruto followed. After Itachi got over the shock of seeing Minabi, he told Sasuke to follow him. He walked in the opposite direction with Sasuke and then stopped. He got out a scroll from his pouch and unrolled it.

"What is that, brother?" he asked noticing that the scroll had a bunch of the same seals on it.

"This is a sealing scroll containing weapons. Each seal has a hundred of the same weapons in it and today we will be using shuriken." He said and unsealed one of the seals.

-NUTPS-

"Ok, kit I want you to summon fifty clones. They will be working on your jutsu while we spar" Minabi said.

"But how will that work, if I'm not working on the jutsu myself how will I learn anything?" Naruto asked the fox.

"Okay I'm going to explain this once, and once only. Make a clone." Naruto did. "Now don't move and send your clone to look and see what I'm holding behind my back." The clone looked and saw that he had a shuriken in his hands. "Now dispel him." He did and then grinned

"You were holding a shuriken. So whatever the clone experiences before it's dispelled, I remember. What are the limitations of this" Naruto asked looking at Minabi.

"Nice job, kit, you're smarter than you look. The limitations are that you have to build up physical strength and speed on your own but anything that has to do with the mind such as reading or muscle memory, or even learning chakra control you can do with this. The only thing you can't, like I said is increase your physical fitness. Now make fifty clones." Naruto did as he was asked and created fifty clones. Naruto then looked around the field of clones thinking.

"Can I test my max Minabi, I have an idea." Naruto asked finally. Minabi grinned at his student's willingness to think ahead.

"Yes go ahead, I want you to try and create 300." Naruto did the hand sign and said "Multi shadow clone jutsu!" he made three hundred more clones easily but was breathing heavy and sweating.

"So 350 are about my max right now. Alright that's good. Minabi I know because of you that I have huge chakra reserves and I was wondering if you'd let me use these clones to work on my control, I've heard that with massive reserves comes abysmal control." Minabi was shocked at the suggestion but smiled again.

"You are correct; it's a thought process..." Minabi hesitated for a few seconds, "alright I'll let you. I want all 300 to work on trying to walk up that tree, without hands like this." He slowly walked up the tree using only his feet.

"Wow I always wondered how the older ninja from my clan could do stuff like that, so it's a chakra control exercise." Naruto said.

Minabi jumped down and said "Yes, now with that many clones you could literally wreck your mind. So I want twenty to dispel every hour in sets of ten from this group and five from each group of the first fifty. All of your clones gain the memories so that will also quicken your training. When they can walk up the tree I want them to fight on the surface until the can fight for an hour without falling off. No jutsu. Now send the second group to work." Naruto told the clones what to do and they all spread out around the clearing. "Alright now as for what the first group is going to do, I want twenty five of you to work on the fire dragon jutsu. Make it stronger and hotter. The other twenty five of you will be working on a wind style jutsu called wind style: air bullet. I want it to be able to put a clean hole through rock when they are done. Also when both groups get down to five left only dispel one an hour. While they are doing that we will be sparring." When he finished talking he showed the twenty five clones the hand signs for the wind style jutsu, then he explained how to do it and they got to work.

"Naruto I want you to come at me with everything you've got" Minabi said. Naruto took a kunai from his pouch on his left thigh and charged Minabi at full speed which wasn't that fast. Minabi easily dodge and threw a few shuriken at Naruto with surprised him. He barely dodged them and Minabi shunshined behind him and said, "You let your guard down. Big mistake" right before kicking him hard in the kidney from behind, which caused the boy to double over in pain.

"Why did you do that?" yelled Naruto, "I thought we were only sparring!" Minabi looked at him with a cold stare.

"In a real battle you can't let your guard down even for a second, or it could mean your life." He said simply.

"Well this wasn't a real battle you could've gone a little easier on me" Naruto said weakly. "I will not go as easy on you as your teachers and older brother. You need to be ready for what is to come." He said ominously. Naruto looked at him wondering what he meant. "Now I want you to start your physical training, because that took less time than I thought. I want you to do twenty pushups, sit-up, leg kicks, punches, and squats. And then run around the clearing three times." Naruto groaned but got to work. Minabi jumped into a tree and watched him and his clones work. The tree walkers were slowly getting farther and farther up the tree. The fire jutsu clones were making progress as well, and so were the wind users. Minabi decided to take a short nap while Naruto trained.

-NUTPS-

"Ok Sasuke, you're doing a lot better but I think we can get you to two tomoes before its time to call it a day." Itachi said as he continued to barrage his younger brother with kunai and shuriken now. Sasuke would either dodge or block the projectiles but he didn't get them all, resulting in the multiple cuts and scrapes. _'He's improving very quickly, I predict he and Naruto will be the strongest Uchiha the world has seen since Madara'_ he thought as he continued. "Alright Sasuke time for a short break. You deserve it." He said smiling at his brother.

"Finally" Sasuke exclaimed, "we've been at this for hours!" He walked over to Itachi and Itachi handed him a scroll.

"This is a scroll I made for you and Naruto when you unlocked the sharingan. I want you to read it and study it every time you unlock more of your sharingan, I will add more to it every once in a while until it's filled. You won't be able to read much of it yet but here you go" Sasuke took it and started to read, he noticed that almost all of it was blank except for three short paragraphs:

_Sasuke if you are reading this then you've activated your sharingan to one tomoe in each eye. I'm very proud of you and hope that I helped you in some way. More of the scroll will appear as you unlock more of your potential and you will begin to learn about the things you can do. _

_With one tomoe you can perceive things around you easier and the world may start to slow down a bit. You will get used to this. You will also start to see chakra flow and read lips to a degree. _

_Those are the abilities you gain by having one tomoe, when you have more the next part of the scroll will be visible to you and you can read about the abilities you gain. The one thing I must stress to you is that our dojutsu and family have a curse of hatred on them. We must do things to gain power that may seem horrible to most, but that is how it has always been. I ask that you try to find other ways to gain power and not rely on your eyes too much because they might just fail you sooner or later. My hope is that you can overcome this curse of ours and learn to love, and not hate. _

Sasuke looked at his brother, who had sadness in his eyes. "Brother why are you sad" he asked showing his age. "It's nothing Sasuke just bad memories, let's eat a small lunch and then get back to training."

-NUTPS-

A kunai hit the tree that Minabi was napping in which woke him up. "What the hell, kit!" Minabi exclaimed and looked down.

"I'm done with physical training so I thought I'd wake you up. There are fifty clones fighting on the tree left and I'm down to five with each jutsu." Naruto said laughing at him.

"Alright then let's go see how they're doing" Minabi said as he reached the ground. They walked over to the clones that were practicing the fire jutsu and asked how they were doing.

"We finished, but we should probably just show you." One of the clones that were left told him. Naruto noticed that the ground looked like it had been scorched everywhere. "Alright show us then." The clone did the hand signs for the jutsu and said "Fire style: Fire dragon jutsu" he exhaled. A huge white-hot dragon swam from his mouth into the air. It burned anything that it touched. Naruto jumped back and gawked at the dragon. It was so hot that by that he could see the heat radiating off of it. _'If someone got hit by that they'd get obliterated!'_ he thought to himself _'better not use it at full power unless I have to.'_ "That's amazing" he said out loud. Minabi watched satisfied with his progress.

"Dispel these clones and let's go check on the others." Minabi said and started walking towards the wind users. Naruto did as he was told and got a little dizzy from the influx of memories. He joined Minabi with the other clones.

"How are you guys doing with the jutsu" Naruto asked one of the clones that were left. "We finished a little while ago; here is the result that you asked for." The clone showed them a medium sized rock with a hole in it that went all the way through. "That's good guys" he dispelled his clones. "Now will you teach me the jutsu, Minabi?" he asked.

"It's getting dark so not right now, we will continue this tomorrow. First lets go and check on your tree walking clones." Minabi said and started walking in their direction. When they arrived at where the clones were, they were all fighting on the surface of the trees and dispelling every once in a while.

"Good job you guys, come down" Naruto said and they all landed on the ground. "How long have you all been up there?" he asked them. "Well we've been fighting up there for almost two hours, but we were finished with the tree walking exercise after the third set of clones dispelled" the clone replied.

"Good, dispel them five at a time." Minabi said. Naruto slowly dispelled them in increments of five giving himself a few minutes between each dispel to acclimate. When he was finished Minabi dispelled.

"Well I guess I'd better check on how Itachi and Sasuke are doing." Naruto said to himself right before a kunai flew past him and stuck into a tree. He looked up and saw his two brothers and they both had their sharingan activated. Itachi's had three tomoes, while Sasuke's had two. _'So_ _Sasuke's sharingan has been developed to two tomoes now, which reminds me, I need to start training with mine. I don't want Sasuke to get jealous though, so I'll talk to Minabi about helping me put a genjutsu over it tonight.'_ He thought to himself but aloud he said, "Hey you two, I'm assuming that the training went well."

Sasuke grinned. "Yeah it was hell; I dodged weapons for my life! Once we got it activated, it was easier but it took forever to get to the second stage. I'm just happy that I got that far!" Sasuke said excitedly. "We should head back to the campsite" Itachi said and started walking in that general direction with Naruto and Sasuke behind him.

"You'll get to see the results of my training tomorrow when I finish" Naruto explained. "You haven't even finished yet? What have you been doing out here? Sitting on your ass I'll bet," Sasuke teased. "You'll see tomorrow" Naruto said and grinned.

When they got back to the camp Itachi put some of the leftover meat on the fire that they rebuilt and asked Naruto to bring out Minabi so that he could talk to him. Naruto did as he was told and Minabi went into the tent with Itachi. Itachi put a silencing jutsu around the tent so that the boys wouldn't hear. "You said you could help me with the problem I am having with my eyes, does that mean that you can awaken the Mangekyo sharingan for me? I've been struggling with the fact that the only way to awaken it is the death of my best friend Shisui by my hand..." he paused to let Minabi speak.

"No Itachi it means that I can help you activate the stage after that which is the eternal Mangekyo sharingan, which is only normally obtained by implanting a siblings eyes in your sockets." Itachi almost puked at the thought of that which Minabi saw and was pleased about.

"What do I have to do?"

"I have a modified Tsukyomi that I can use on you that will activate it." Itachi was surprised.

"Isn't that the ultimate genjutsu?" he asked and Minabi replied.

"Yes and before you ask it will last seventy two hours that way you will experience it but only twenty minutes will pass in the real world. You won't have to worry about being out for three days."

Itachi didn't even blink before saying, "okay I'll do it." Minabi activated his sharingan which was a completely golden eye that had three rings inside it and along each ring was a decreasing number of tomoe. The last ring had the standard three, but all of the tomoe were red. He told Itachi to lie down and brace himself.

"Kongo no shichō gijutsu" he said and Itachi's eyes widened knowing that that wasn't the name of the jutsu. The last thing that Itachi saw before he found himself in a different world was Minabi's spinning sharingan. Minabi walked out of the tent and Naruto asked where Itachi was.

"Training" Minabi said simply before sitting down beside them.

-NUTPS-

Itachi found himself on top of the hokage monument, but it was different than the one he saw every day. It had 7 faces on it instead of the four that he remembered. He looked at the last three. One was Tsunade, the slug sannin. The second was a man looked surprisingly like his youngest brother Naruto. He didn't recognize the third man but he did notice that he had the sharingan etched in his eyes. Itachi looked up; he realized that the sky was blood red. He looked around for the moon and couldn't find it. He did see that there was a huge red sharingan with the same design as Minabi's in the sky, minus the rings.

'_What is this place?'_ he thought. He took his eyes off of the sharingan and looked around. The village wasn't in very good shape. Buildings were falling apart everywhere. He heard a sound a little to the left and in the next second he was surrounded by unfamiliar ninjas. They all had no headbands on and Itachi wondered why. The circle of ninjas opened and the last man from the hokage monument walked up.

"Who are you and what are you doing in MY village?" the man asked. "My name is Itachi Uchiha and I am from here as you can see" he pointed to his headband. One of the men gasped when he looked at the symbol on the headband.

"Itachi Uchiha you say, hehe… I thought I killed you 26 years ago after the war broke out. Yeah I did, because I remember that you and your brothers' teams had been such a thorn in my side for so long, but now you can't even touch me. Take him to the deepest dungeon and start the torture." He told the men behind him. They took him before he could fight back and slapped metal bands on his wrists. "Before you are tortured to death I'll let you know my name. I'm Madara Uchiha the first and strongest of the Uchiha and this is my world now. Take him." He could feel his chakra being drained rapidly by the metal. They walked him to the IT division and down the stairs that were right inside. Down and down they went for what seemed like hours. Itachi counted over five thousand steps before they finally came to an end. Now he was in a hallway. It was dark with only one light near the stairs. They lead him down the hallway to the fifth door on the right. The ninja walked him inside the large room. He looked around at the tables full of torture instruments. They carried him to a cleared of table. He tried his hardest to get free but their grips were strong on him, and he couldn't get free. They strapped him down on the table with more of the chakra draining metal. One of the men picked up a normal kunai and slashed him in the stomach. He gasped from the pain and the man cut him a second time, and then a third. The man grinned sadistically and ran the blade along Itachi's chest leaving a slice that was a foot long. Itachi cried out as he never had before.

-NUTPS-

It had been almost an hour since Minabi had used the genjutsu on Itachi. _'It's probably been long enough; I should go and check on him'_ he thought. The boys had eaten and were talking. He slipped into the tent and looked at Itachi. "Shit he's going to die if I don't act quickly!" he exclaimed. There were three deep cuts along his stomach and a long thin one along his chest. He touched Itachi's forehead and said "Ritān!" and Itachi woke up screaming.

"What the hell was that!" he yelled.

"Stop moving or you're going to bleed to death" Minabi said calmly. Itachi went silent and Minabi looked around for a first aid kit. He got some bandage tape and wrapped his wounds tightly with it. They still oozed blood slowly but after a while they stopped.

"What was that jutsu, Minabi" Itachi asked, "and why is everything so vibrant. I can tell how worried you are, even though you don't look it at all."

Minabi looks at him grimly "that was a mistake I'm sorry I should have told you what I was really going to do from the beginning. I apologize for that but I needed an ally. Don't speak and let me explain, I could have put you in a modified Tsukyomi, but instead I used a jutsu I've only ever used on myself. It is a time-space jutsu called Kongo no shichō gijutsu that literally allows the user or victim in your case's soul to travel 37 years into the future. I want to test my theory and if I'm right, what you just saw will never happen. I am assuming that you met Madara uchiha, and that he had taken over the world, correct?" Itachi nodded and Minabi continued "ok I think I told your father this but Madara was the reason that I attacked the village that night, eight years ago. I'm not sure exactly what he's planning, but what you saw is the end result. That jutsu last twenty four hours, eight hours present time, and whatever injuries you sustain are transferred to your body. It's similar to the Yamanaka's clan jutsu in that regard. Now I want you to channel as much chakra into your eyes as you possibly can."

Itachi started channeling chakra into his eyes with them closed and the he slowly opened them "Ack!" he screamed and fell to the ground.

-NUTPS-

Naruto and Sasuke were sitting by the fire talking about the training that they went through during the day. "Yeah, but the trick to training and activating your sharingan is to strengthen your eyesight" Sasuke said and Naruto asked how exactly you did that. "Well sparring is one way but it has to be serious sparring, and you have to have it activated the whole time. Also having thousands of projectiles thrown at you at high speeds will strengthen it." Naruto shuddered at the thought. "So what did Minabi have you do?" Sasuke asked him.

"Well at first he had me summon fifty shadow clones. Then he told me how they worked which is that anything that the clone does before it dispels you will remember. So apparently they are a good training tool but not many people can use them the way I do because I have a crazy amount of chakra. If you tried to summon even one you'd probably die."

Sasuke looked at him incredulously. "Really, then how can you use them so easily?" Sasuke asked.

"Well Minabi has been inside me for so long that he has increased my reserves without meaning to the point that I have more chakra than the hokage probably, that's just a guess though. Anyways I remembered that Iruka said that if someone has a lot of chakra to begin with that they have horrible control of it so I can up with an idea…" Naruto continued to tell him everything about the days training except for the part about the results, claiming that had have to wait until the next day to see. They continued to talk about all kind of subjects from the academy to what they wanted to eat when they got home.

-NUTPS-

Itachi was freaking out. "W-what is this?" he asked Minabi, as he examined his eyes in the reflection of the small mirror that all ANBU are required to carry. They looked exactly like Minabi's except that the tomoes were all black instead of red.

"That is what's called the eternal sage sharingan and you are the second human to possess it." Minabi explained.

"Who was the first?" Itachi looked at him and asked. Minabi put a hand on his shoulder.

"I gave it to the Sage of the Six Paths when he found me and my brethren and took us in." The demon met Itachi's eyes; the uchiha was beyond shocked.

"So I have the eyes of the Rikodou Sennin? Minabi I'm sure that these eyes have many untold secrets and abilities, but is there anything that your feel that I must know right now?" Itachi asked closing his still activated eyes. He opened them again and noticed that everything around him was extremely detailed. He could see each pore on his and Minabi's skin.

"The one thing I feel that you must know is that those eyes never deactivate. Even if you deactivate them visibly you will still have access to all of the abilities just as if they are active as they are now. I recommend that you teach Sasuke the fire dragon jutsu, I have plans to teach him and Sasuke a collaboration jutsu that you will see Naruto use by himself tomorrow. Itachi you have a long road ahead of you, you must retrain this new sharingan. It may look complete, but it truth it is still in the first stage. Visibly only the tomoes will change, becoming red as you master it, but your proficiency with it and its abilities will change drastically." Itachi sighed at the thought of having to retrain this sharingan, but at the same time he was excited as hell to have a new challenge to overcome. "Let's rejoin your brothers. First you must visibly deactivate your eyes, concentrate on having as little chakra as possible in both of them." Itachi did this and notice that the only thing that changed was visible and that was that his eyes went back to their original coal black. "I will write out a scroll explaining the stages and abilities you will obtain with training. You may also want to try experimenting with your abilities to create new one, but I strongly advise against it until you unlock at least six of the thirty two tomoes in your eyes. Do not talk to anyone about this unless I am personally there. Is that understood Itachi?" Itachi nodded as they walked out of the tent.

-NUTPS-

The two eldest walked over to the twins and greeted them. "Hey brother, Minabi, how did your talk go?" Naruto asked them.

He looked at them curiously, "it went better than expected. Boys I have a meeting with father and won't be able to train you tomorrow, I will be back in the evening, but Minabi will take over both of your training until I return." Itachi told them. One look between the other two told Minabi that he would hold up the agreement that they made. Minabi nodded.

The boys smiled, excited that they would both be training with the fox the next day. Little did they know, as soon as Itachi said that, said fox had begun to think of ways that he could torture-err train the boys the next day. "Let's all get some sleep" Itachi said interrupting his thoughts. Minabi dispelled and Itachi confirmed that he would be taking watch again; they all walked into their tents and slowly drifted off to sleep.

'_Hey Minabi what did you and brother talk about in the tent?'_ he asked and could feel and hear the fox sigh inside him. _'We talked about his eyes, Naruto, I basically gave him an upgrade and that's all you need to know right now. Tomorrow I'm going to start conditioning you and your brother's bodies to be better ninja. What you will do tomorrow will become both of your morning routine. You will each do it once a day and every month you will add half of the routine to it.'_ Naruto's brow furrowed as he thought of what they would be doing. '_Let me out for_ _the night. I need to ask Itachi something and then I need six blank scrolls to write down some information for you three on.'_ Before Naruto could respond he heard a poof from outside. He got up, picked up his kunai pouch and pulled a kunai from it before dashing outside. He looked around the camp and saw a diverse assembly of forest animals along with his two brothers exiting their own tents ready for action. A large tiger growled at them signaling for them to attack. The three brothers started fighting the forest animals ferociously. Naruto blocked a tiger's claw swipe before stabbing it in the heart. Sasuke had taken down four large spiders and Itachi was steadily shooting kunai and shuriken from his hands nailing each animal he aimed at a few times. Naruto kept fighting and before long there were piles of dead animals everywhere. Finally the tiger from the beginning roared and the animals started retreating. Soon there wasn't one in sight.

"Whew", Naruto said, "that was a pretty decent work out. Brother, Minabi needs six blank scrolls, so that he can write some stuff down for us." Itachi looked at him and said, "alright here you go." He pulled out eight scrolls and handed them to Naruto. "In case he needs a couple extra" he reassured him. Naruto summoned Minabi and then everyone went back in their respective tents. Like nothing happened.

-NUTPS-

The next morning the boys were woken up abruptly, "get up you two! Your day starts now and if you aren't out here in five minutes I'm going to make you hate me!" They both sat up in their beds and groaned. Sasuke was the last out barely missing the five minute mark. "Alright you two, I'm going to be training you today and that means you will call me sensei. Now I want you to both eat and then meet me over in the clearing." Minabi barked at them.

They quickly prepared some leftovers and started eating. Minabi had been up all night writing down the skills and abilities for Itachi's new sharingan. That's not all he wrote though. There were two scrolls for Sasuke and two for Naruto and Itachi. They quickly ate their food and walked out to the clearing. "Alright you two here is your first scroll. They contain chakra control exercises for you to start doing; we're going to at least double your reserves by the time you get out of the academy. I want you to start with the tree walking exercise, and work your way down. There are also elemental exercises for you but I don't want you to start with them until you become a genin at least. There is one technique on the scroll for each three exercises. There are twenty seven different exercises for you to practice daily. I want you to be able to hold a spar with Naruto on the tree for an hour by the end of the day. If you can do that I'll teach you a special way that you can use an undeveloped sharingan like yours. If you find tree walking too hard to begin with I want you to start with holding pebbles to you skin with your chakra. Before you start however I want you both to look at this scroll. This will be your morning routine from now on and you will add half of it to the exiting routine every month. I will give you both what is known as resistance seals that you will be able to increase and decrease easily. I want them to both start at ten and never go below that unless you are sleeping. Where do you want them? Pick somewhere that an enemy can see them to try and change them." Minabi lectured and they listened like good little boys.

They both took their weights off and Naruto told him that he wanted his on his left thigh between his knee and torso. Sasuke put his on the right thigh same location. "Now those should only ever react to your chakra signatures but if something ever goes wrong and an enemy changes them you could be in big trouble. I don't want either of you to put it passed 100 pounds of resistance until I tell you. It could seriously affect your growth. Start at ten and wear them for a month and add five to it. Now as for your routines, read this." Minabi tossed both of them a scroll. On it, it read:

_Hold three pebbles to your skin as long as you can until you can hold them for an hour. When you can do that work for an hour and a half with four. Then two hours with five. Once you can hold them for two hours. Just increase the number of pebbles until you get to twenty five for two hours. Come to me and tell me when you can do that. Naruto I advise you to use shadow clones, you'll progress much faster than Sasuke but you need that extra edge on your control because of your large reserves. Sasuke, I want you to remember throughout your training that just because Naruto progress faster than you because of his clones doesn't mean that he is better than you. Strive to be his better no matter what!_

_Twenty pushups._

_Thirty sit ups_

_25 squats_

_Fifty punches and fifty kicks with each leg and arm. _

_Run one mile. _

_Repeat step one for half the time. _

_Spar for thirty minutes without the seals on. No jutsu, just hand to hand._

_Sunday will be your resting day; the seals will be on but at the minimum of ten that I set for you. You can also ask to increase your regimen but not until three months in. _

The boys read over the scroll twice before Minabi told them to go ahead and get started on the routine. They both get started on the control exercise and Naruto brought out ten clones. They each started on holding one pebble for ten minutes then he dispelled them all. He held the pebbles for about thirty minutes before they fell. Sasuke held his for ten and was kind of jealous of Naruto for having such an awesome training tool. He tried again and held them for a little longer. He did this until he could hold them for fifteen minutes. Then he gave up for the day and started on his physical exercises. They finished the pushups around the same time, and moved on to the sit ups. Sasuke finished first and started on his squats. Right after Naruto finished and started on his squats. They finished those at around the same time and one started on the kicks while the other started his punches. They were both getting kind of tired at this point and finish at roughly the same time. Switching to the last exercise they both power through it and finished. After this they were both sweating bullets. They sat down and held their pebbles for the required time.

"Alright take a ten minute break and undo your seals. After the ten minutes I want you to spar for thirty. You should feel a little lighter on your feet with no resistance; not a lot but nonetheless." They undid their seals and realized that they are lighter now. After the break they got into their respective positions across from each other. They each bowed and took a defensive stance, "Start." They rushed at each other. Naruto threw a kick at Sasuke's head from the left, but Sasuke dodged under it and punched at Naruto's ribs from the right. He caught the fist and pushed it away. Sasuke lost his balance for a split second and that allowed Naruto to sweep kick his feet out from under him. A loud thud rang out as Sasuke hit the ground. "Ughhh, did you have to hit me that hard?" Sasuke groaned.

"Get up you still have twenty more minutes Sasuke" Minabi said to them. Sasuke slowly got up and went into his stance. Naruto charged him and came from the left with a knee to his stomach. Sasuke blocked with his palms and countered with a punch to Naruto's face. It connected and sent the raven haired boy flying. He landed on his feet and came back with force, aiming a kick to Sasuke's ribs. It connected hard, but Sasuke caught it and twisted his leg and the rest of him. Naruto realized this and threw himself into the twist aiming another knee to his brother's head. Sasuke ducked and let go of Naruto completely and watched him twist and land on his knee and left foot. He braced his fall with his hand too and jumped back up at Sasuke. The boy blocked another flurry of punches from his brother until he saw an opportunity and caught Naruto's left fist and pulled it toward him with his right at the ready to punch him hard. "Stop, times up" Minabi said a little too late as Sasuke's fist hit Naruto hard. The green eyed boy flew back and hit a tree, knocking the breath out of him.

"Well done you two that was a good match. Nice finisher Sasuke that was good." Minabi praised the older of the two as he went to help Naruto. "Alright, now Naruto, I'm going to teach you how to combine the two jutsu I showed you yesterday. I want you to use both at half power." Minabi gestured for them to back up and they did. He quickly went through the hand signs for fire dragon and unleashed it at the ground and before he even finished the dragon he was already on the wind bullet.

As the last bit of flame erupted from his mouth he shot the bullet at the center. The fire was fueled by the compressed wind and exploded outward from the center. It burnt everything in a 30 foot radius. "That is the fire style: dragon flame bomb. It will be a collaboration technique for the two of you to work on mastering. Naruto I want you to be able to do this by yourself if Sasuke isn't around because it is an invaluable technique but it is much more powerful when two chakras are working together. Start working on getting the timing right. Sasuke your part in this will be the fire dragon." He showed Sasuke the hand signs for the jutsu as Naruto walked off.

They were both amazed at the potential of this jutsu but had to concentrate on mastering it. Sasuke started to work on the fire dragon jutsu and when he got the basic dragon down Minabi told him to work on making it bigger and hotter. "I want to be able to feel the heat from twenty foot away."

Naruto set to work with his clones. He decided that using a clone and the original for this jutsu would be best and Minabi was surprised when he walked over and saw fifty clones working in pairs.

"Good thinking Naruto." He praised the boy.

-NUTPS-

Meanwhile Itachi was on his way to meet their father. He took the short trip a little slower so that he could truly adjust to his eyes. Everything around him was vibrant and seemed to move with life. He realized that he could now see the chakra network of people instead of just the chakra. He also notice that he could slow down the passage of time to a degree. _'I originally hated the idea of having to retrain my eyes, but now I'm looking forward to getting some alone time to train!'_ he thought to himself as he walked. He was almost at the compound now and wondered what his father wanted to talk to him about. He entered into the Uchiha district and slowly made his way to his father's room. He noticed that people had a different tint to their chakra now depending on what nature they were. Before all chakra seemed blue to him. But now most Uchiha he that he saw had a reddish tint to their chakra network. He knocked on his father's door.

"Come in."

So he walked inside.

"Ah, Itachi glad you could break away from the boys. There is something very serious that I asked you here to talk about, but first how is the training going?"

Itachi looked at his father and smiled. "They are doing great; Naruto is learning a self-collaboration jutsu that he will later be able to use with Sasuke and Sasuke has activated his sharingan to the second tomoe. They are probably getting whipped into shaped by that wily fox Minabi as we speak."

Fugaku laughed and said, "Good, I'm glad to hear that you and Minabi are getting along. I was surprised as well that he wasn't as evil as everyone thought. So now to why I asked you here. The uchiha are getting restless Itachi, including myself. We cannot stand idly by while the hokage and other villagers treat us like we are nothing more than a dojutsu. There has been talk of a coup. I know what you're thinking, but it has to come to an end somehow Itachi." He looked at his son studying his face, looking for any sign to show him what side he would be on.

"This is madness father! We can't betray our village because we feel used. That is the shinobi world; you know that better than anyone! Please try to talk to the elders. Make them see that a coup is not the answer!" Itachi told his father trying to make him understand. He knew that his clan felt this way, but a coup wouldn't help anything.

"I'm sorry you feel that way Itachi. All I ask is that if this goes south and something happens to me that you take care of your brothers. They will not be a part of this and I do not want them to know what is happening. Can you do that?"

"Yes father of course I will look after the boys but you must know that this is not the way to handle this! Please listen to me!" Itachi was fighting a losing battle.

"This is the only way to handle this Itachi; the village needs to know that we are not just a means to an end. That we are people!" Fugaku raged.

"They do know that father!" Itachi retorted and looked at his father with fire in his eyes being careful not to activate them.

"We are planning to start this coup in a month's time. Do not interfere with this Itachi. Just take care of the boys and try to be happy." Itachi wondered to himself what he could do. He loved his family, but his love for the village outweighed that family love tenfold.

"Okay father, I will." He said and asked if that was all he wished to talk about.

"Yes Itachi you may go. But remember that I love you son and no matter what happens that will not change." Itachi got up and left. He was in turmoil. What would he do? What could he do? He needed to think.

He shunshined over to the waterfall that he and Shisui would always go to for a spar. Shisui stood there standing at the edge of the cliff. "Itachi I know that you're here, you've probably heard by now about the coup. I don't know what side you are on but I am on the side of the village and will not be a part of this! I would rather take my own life than betray my village like the other Uchiha are about to do!" he started walking towards the edge.

"Stop Shisui! I feel the same way but that is not the way to go about it either, we must come up with a plan of action to take. I can't stand here and let my best friend kill himself when my family is about to betray the village!" He ran to Shisui and put his arms around him. "What are we going to do about this?" he asked him after letting him go. Shisui looked at him and then smiled like he used to when they were little.

"I don't know but it's good that you are on the right side in this. I think that we should take this to the hokage and see what he wants to do about it." Itachi smiled and agreed, so they shunshined to the hokage's office.

"Come in." the hokage said when they knocked.

They walked into his office.

"Hello Itachi, Shisui. Why have you come to see me today? I'm sure that it's something to do with the clan?" The old hokage looked at them. He smiled, but Itachi knew that he knew what they were going to tell him.

"Hokage-sama the clan is preparing a coup de ta against the village! I can tell that you know of this already, why haven't you done anything?" Itachi said and noticed that Hiruzen was surprised that he could tell.

"There is nothing to do Itachi. The actions your clan is taking against the village are treason! They must be punished. I cannot be lenient with them or I would, you know that. You have been watching them for us. Both of you. You know what must be done, but Itachi, I promised you that you and your brothers would have a home here. Shisui I promised that you and Miko would have a home and future here. Those promises will be kept. Do you understand what you must do? I will give you two weeks to prepare. Both of you must eradicate the Uchiha." Hiruzen did not look like he was happy about what he just had to say, but Itachi could see that someone else was pulling his strings. The hokage that he knew would never been okay with punishing a whole clan.

He would have found another way_. 'Danzo is making him order us to this!'_ Itachi realized. "I cannot disobey your order lord hokage, but I know who is to blame for this order. My clan will grow and prosper in this village after we do this, but know that I will never forget who was behind the massacre of my clan. He will be brought to justice, but in the right way. I want you to tell the next hokage of this and he or she will decide what happens after he or she has talked to me. Will you do this for me hokage? I have big plans for my brothers and I in this village. If the man who ordered me to kill my father is not put to justice, my clan will move. I am to be head of the Uchiha correct? You're behind me on this right Shisui?" Itachi looked over to Shisui who smiled and gave him thumbs up. He looked over to the hokage, and was shocked.

The hokage had such a look of pride on his face. "Yes I will do this for you Itachi, if you will do something for me when the time comes. I want you to take that man's place. You're young now and need experience in the ANBU and as a jounin instructor, but when the time comes for him to come to justice the next hokage will ask you if you are ready to take his place. I want you to say yes because that is how a clan head delegates and your 15 years old! You are way beyond your years Itachi and I think you'll be a great clan head. But first we must look to the task at hand. Are you going to tell your brothers? Or Miko? I think you should bring them all in and let us talk about it in the next week. I want to have a face to face with all of you. Just hokage to his students."

"My father asked me not to but I will do this because it'll help explaining if you are the one to be there when we tell them." Itachi said and Shisui agreed. The hokage smiled, "Well if that's all settled, Itachi let me speak to you privately for a minute. Shisui go and meet Itachi's brothers in the forest of death. There will be someone you don't recognize. They are a friend and let them explain." Itachi was shocked that he knew what they were up to. He gave Shisui a note to give to Minabi. "Give this to the one you don't know" Shisui bowed and left.

-NUTPS-

Back with the boys, Naruto lay exhausted on the ground beside Sasuke; Minabi sat in the tree smiling. 'They almost have it! They only need another day of training together to complete the collaboration jutsu to the extent that it will not fail.' It had been three and a half hours since the two had begun. Naruto, thanks to his clones, got the timing perfect for his wind bullet in an hour. By that time Sasuke had gotten his fire dragon hot enough for the jutsu to work. It wasn't as hot as Naruto's at full power, but it would work. That was when they started putting the two together. They slaved at working on their timing for two and a half hours and the jutsu only failed half the time now. All in all it had been a good day, Minabi was proud of the two of them. He got them up and started them towards the camp. They walked into the camp and immediately they were all on high alert. "Why are you in our campsite?" Minabi asked and Shisui looked at Minabi shocked at the resemblance he had with the fourth. "Itachi sent me from the hokage's office. This is for you." He calmly said and handed Minabi the note.

_Bring the boys to the hokage's office. Tell Shisui, the guy that gave you this note, to go and get Miko and do the same. Do not be seen. _

_-Itachi _

Minabi showed Shisui the note and said, "Come on boys we have to the hokage's office. Be stealthy and do not be seen." he nodded to Shisui who disappeared.


	5. The Massacre

**A/N- This is chapter five, and I hope you all enjoy! I will have six up by next Wednesday hopefully.**

**A/N- I do not own Naruto.**

Chapter 5: The Massacre

"We will tell only a few about this Itachi, do you understand?" The hokage looked at the young man in front of him. He was sure that Itachi would be perfect to take Danzo's place in the shadows, and that the new Uchiha clan would prosper in the village, not as outsiders. They had come up with a plan of action to take against the clan, but it wasn't pretty and he knew that Itachi did not like the situation.

"Yes, Hokage, only the new Uchiha clan can know about this" Itachi replied solemnly, knowing that he was about to eradicate his whole clan. They had been talking for a few hours now. A knock sounded at the door.

"Come in" Hiruzen stated.

Shisui, Miko, Minabi, and the boys entered the room. As soon as the door was shut an ANBU appeared and the hokage nodded at him. The ANBU, who Itachi knew was Kakashi, put a silencing barrier over the whole building. He took his mask off and introduced himself.

"I am Kakashi, a jounin and ANBU for the hokage." He looked at the boys. Itachi could see a faint smile play across his lips.

"Alright, what I am about to tell all of you does not leave this room, no one can know about this. Do you all understand" the hokage asked.

"Yes hokage" everyone said in unison.

"Good, now this will be a shock to most of you, but the Uchiha clan is preparing to stage a coup de ta against the village. They will attack in one month's time. Boys, your brother and I have come up with a solution to this but it is not a good one and it will not be easy. The Uchiha clan must be completely eradicated, before this attack occurs." The hokage looked at the shocked and pained looks on everyone's faces.

"What about mother and father? What will happen to us?" Naruto asked seriously, surprising the adults in the room with his lack of hysteria. Little did they know he was hiding his emotions from them, he was terrified of what might happen to them. He didn't know if they saw through it or not. "I also would like to know why the clan is staging a coup."

"Why are you telling us this if you are going to kill us all?" Sasuke asked, also serious.

The hokage looked at the two of them and smiled inwardly at their maturity at such a young age. "The Uchiha in this room with us will not be killed. Your father is one of the heads that are planning the coup and your mother is helping him. They believe that we think of the Uchiha clan as just a dojutsu and that we are taking advantage of them. They couldn't be more wrong in this thinking, but there is nothing I can do to change what they think, your brother and I have both tried. You five will be the start of the new uchiha clan. You will be put under the CRA when you turn sixteen and you will all prosper as a recovering clan in the village. The clan compound will be used for many other differing purposes which Itachi will explain to you. After this massacre is carried out you must act as if you knew nothing. You will all live in a house right outside the village that I have been entrusted to give to whom I deem worthy. It will have a few surprises that you all may use to make yourselves stronger. Naruto, you and Sasuke will train with many sensei over the next few years until you graduate, including Kakashi here. He will be helping you train your ninjutsu. Minabi I believe you've been helping them on their conditioning as well as other areas. I want you to be their rounded teacher; you will teach them in any area you think they will benefit from. Shisui and Miko, you will also train with these two teachers and learn from them. Miko I hear that you are good with kenjutsu, you will be teaching the boys the basic katas. There will be many weapons for all of you to choose from in your new place. I want each of you to pick one and specialize in it. Itachi you will be training everyone in the sharingan and the minute details on how it is used well. Kakashi you could also learn a little bit from Itachi. I know that he is younger but he shows knowledge of the sharingan that I have not seen since the time of the first hokage. Itachi, Shisui and Kakashi will carry out the massacre. In two weeks' time you will be all that is left of your clan. Now Itachi I believe that it is your turn to speak." The hokage looked at the young man as he took a drag from his pipe.

"Alright, before I keep going that was a pretty long speech. Any questions so far?" Itachi looked around the room.

"Why are we the only ones being spared from this onslaught, brother?" Naruto looked at Itachi with tears welling up in his eyes at the thought of his whole family dying.

"Because we are different than them Naruto. We know that our village means us no harm. We know that they aren't just using us. The hokage and I have talked about this very same matter for hours tonight. We are the future of the Uchiha. You know that if there were any other way to go about it I would. You know that! There really isn't though. This has to be done." Itachi smiled slightly. "Do not worry. We will be okay. I promise."

The hokage looked at all of them. They were all very somber and sad. "Shisui and Kakashi will stay behind to listen to the plan. After Itachi is done you all may go. I cannot bear to watch you suffer in this way any longer." He said with tears in his own eyes.

"No. I want to hear everything. If we are going to be all that is left then I need honesty from the very beginning." Naruto spoke up again. The Hokage looked at the boy hard, this was a child! _'How is this boy so mature, why does he insist on being a man so young'_ Hiruzen asked himself. Sasuke, Miko and everyone else agreed with Naruto right away, albeit they were surprised as well that he was the one to come at the hokage with that.

"Alright, I understand. You will have nothing but honesty from me. You all will. Itachi, continue with what you were saying." The hokage looked at Itachi with solemn eyes.

"Minabi, I need to tell them what you've gifted me with, is that alright?" Itachi asks and Minabi nods, knowing that all cards must be laid on the table. "Minabi took me into a jutsu of his own making that showed me a future where Madara Uchiha ruled the whole ninja world. I'm assuming he overtook this village first because he was based here, but I promise you that every human alive was under his control. It wasn't a very fun experience. I was in the jutsu for almost two hours. Minabi brought me out of the jutsu and I noticed something very strange. This jutsu gave me a gift, and that is what I need to tell you about. First let me show you." Itachi looked at them all and then channeled chakra into his eyes. He felt them visibly activate and everyone gasped. Hiruzen looked at his eyes and realized that he had heard of something similar once before.

"What is that Itachi? I've heard and read a description about something that looks similar, but that just simply can't be! Can it?" the hokage said flabbergasted.

"What you all are looking at is the eyes of the rikudo sennin. They are called the eternal sage sharingan and they hold immense power. Minabi gave them to me because he said he needed an ally that he could trust with the information that I just told you about. He needed to change that future. I have barely an inkling of their power and already I know that if I faced a normal Uchiha they wouldn't last two minutes."

Itachi seriously relayed the knowledge that he'd been keeping from the boys to them. "Minabi has promised me a scroll with a full description of their abilities but if by chance I am able to pass them on, I am declaring any information that I do not give you about them a clan secret. You will know most, but not all of their power, is that alright with you hokage?" Itachi asked, knowing that the old man wouldn't refuse because he knew that Itachi's power was needed.

It took a minute for the hokage to compose himself after hearing that revelation. "I do not like secrets kept from me Itachi but as long as I know the bulk of their power I am okay with it. I'm sure that we will all get to see the immense power your eyes hold in time. This does change a lot though. There is no way that the defective Uchiha will stand a chance anymore. We will talk about your trip to the future after the task at hand. I want you to write me a full report within the week. Now as for the plan, you three will go into the compound two weeks from now in the dead of night, Itachi you will let Kakashi in. I want you three to kill any and all Uchiha as quickly as possible. The boys and Miko will not be in the compound that night. I will have a class outing planned for Iruka's class that will take them out of the village for two days. They must take a family member and they will choose Miko. Use any means necessary do you understand? Once it is done meet here and you and Shisui will be escorted by me to the Sarutobi residence where I live. You can both sleep in the guest room until the class gets back from their trip. When they do I will hold a public announcement telling the village of what has happened so that you three will not have to go on the run. After that life will resume as normally as it possibly can under these extreme circumstances. I know it will be hard but in time we will all be alright. We will recover from this, I promise you!" The hokage told all of them the plan, and though no one in the room was happy about it, they knew it had to be done and agreed. The boys didn't know what to think. Two weeks and their clan would be gone. Their heads were down and they didn't speak. Naruto finally decided that he would be the one to cheer his brother up. "Sasuke there isn't anything we can do. I love our clan but what they are doing can't be tolerated, by us or the hokage. Let's go and get some ramen maybe that will help to cheer you up." He asked the hokage if they could leave and Hiruzen said yes, so he took his brother's hand and ran out of the office and they started off towards Ichiraku ramen.

Minabi spoke up here, "hokage, I am the Kyuubi and as you well know; my previous vessel was Kushina Uzumaki. I enjoyed being sealed within her, and enjoyed the company of the fourth. I want to tell you that my attack on your village was not one of my own free will. I was made to attack this village by Madara Uchiha, who ripped me from the seal after Kushina gave birth to her stillborn baby. I have regularly checked my future viewing technique ever since he attacked, the first time I checked it, I was sent to the battlefield of what looked to be a very long and bloody war. I do not know who was fighting in the war, but I can only assume it was Madara and the five great nations. I checked the technique a year later to see what had changed and Madara was slowly gaining control over the entire world. He started here, where he was born. He put anyone that disobeyed him to death. I have been checking every year since then and he only grows more powerful. If we don't do something to kill him in this war that is approaching I'm afraid that this world will be lost. I would like you to allow me to help in training your next graduating class. I believe that they are the key to saving this world. All of your adult ninja are either already at their peak and will only get stronger or will be too weak to help anyway. I have begun Naruto and Sasuke on a training regimen that I believe will help them mature into hardened battle ready shinobi. They will be the powerhouses in the coming war, along with Itachi. I wish to at least give your other children a background in training so that they will be able to defend themselves and maybe help us win the war when the time comes. Will you let me do this?" Minabi finished and by this time all the jaws in the room were on the floor.

The hokage didn't know what to think, this was the mighty Kyuubi, and while he knew that Minabi had never been particularly evil he didn't know what to think about this coming war that Minabi was talking about. Adding to that was the fact that the fox actually seemed afraid of what was to come, which made the old man wonder how bad it really was.

"Alright Minabi I will allow you to train the new genin. After each team's first C-ranked mission, they will be sent to you for one month. Instill into them whatever training that you wish, if it will help. Also I know that you didn't attack of your own will, Itachi filled me in on everything and I agree, we must do everything to stop that future from happening, I'm sure that even now Madara is out there pulling his strings. You say that the war starts in eleven years? We must all be ready when the time comes. I will notify the other villages of this but I do not think that they will listen until something has happened. I will also tell all of the sensei that the newest class is given to you to train them hard as well."(Thank you for your honesty with me Minabi." The hokage replied after thinking about it.

-NUTPS-

When the boys arrived at Ichiraku, it was empty except for the shop owner and his daughter Ayame. "Hey gramps I need two bowls of miso for both of us." The owner smiled saying, "Coming right up Naruto!" Sasuke looked at his brother wondering how he could be so strong. They had just learned that their whole clan was going to be annihilated and yet here Naruto was, with a smile on his face trying to cheer him up.

"How do you do it brother? Why are you so happy, despite what we just learned?" He asked Naruto. "Well, I'm not Sasuke, its horrible what's going to happen but I know that it has to be done. You know father. He will never waver in his plan. I'm happy because at least we won't be the only ones left. We will have Shisui and Itachi to take care of us until we're out of the academy. We will also have Miko and all of our friends at the academy. I know that all is not lost Sasuke and that's why I'm not as scared or sad as you are. On this trip try and make some friends, you'll realize like I have that just because something horrible happens, it doesn't mean that the world is ending. We have to be strong Sasuke, for Itachi and the other two; we can let it show that this is getting to us. Remember they weren't going to tell us, but Itachi-niisan thought differently, he thought that we would be ready, and we have to show him that we are." Naruto explained proudly to his brother.

By that time their food was ready so they started to eat. Sasuke thought long and hard about what his brother said while he ate his food slowly. After the first bowl was gone he realized that Naruto was right! He decided then and there that he would show his older brother that he was strong enough. That he wasn't going to let the betrayal of the Uchiha clan ruin him! "Thank you Naruto I think I get what you're saying. Let's show everybody that they didn't make a mistake by telling us!" he said with enthusiasm. Naruto smiled thankfully. His brother had finally realized it too. They finished their meals and decided to go back into the forest to continue their training. The weekend wasn't over after all.

The next two weeks went by rather slowly for our twins. They spent the rest of the weekend training hard in the forest with Minabi. It seemed to him that they had a renewed vigor about them because they had trained harder and harder the last two days. By the end of the weekend Sasuke was able to spar with Naruto on the tree for the hour that Minabi had set for them. They had both gotten a lot better at the pebble sticking exercise. Naruto could hold fifteen for two hours and Sasuke could hold ten. They worked on the fire style dragon flame bomb until it was perfect. It now never failed and caused a huge explosion. After learning tree walking they learned how to chakra hop. This was an exercise where you expelled chakra from your feet and jumped as high as you could. Minabi told them it would be good for increasing their reserves because they used so much chakra doing it.

After they could jump thirty feet in the air Minabi told them to start trying to jump to the same height with less chakra. It had been a tiring weekend for the boys but in the end they had progressed far. After the trip was over they went back home. It was very difficult for them because of what they knew but they both kept quiet about everything. It was hard for them to be around their mother and father, knowing that they'd never see them again in two weeks. For the first week they went to the academy, it was a relief for them to go every day, so that they could get away from the compound. Sasuke actually put an effort into making friends, and found that there were a few kids that he and Naruto liked in the class. Shikamaru was smart, but lazy and didn't talk much. They spent many afternoons with him and his best friend Choji who was kind and a little on the chubby side. They had found out the hard way not to say anything about it.

Sasuke found that Shikamaru and Naruto both enjoyed shogi, which was a strategy game that they were all quite good at for their age. Kiba was loud and obnoxious, but Sasuke liked that he was a loyal person. He didn't like the dog though because of his clan's history with cats. He also attempted to make friends with some of the girls of the class but quickly found out that all they were interested in was that he and Naruto were 'Uchiha geniuses'. One of the girls, Sakura was her name had followed Naruto and Sasuke home one day. Sakura had long pink hair and wore a red qipao dress with white circular designs on it. Under the flaps of the dress was a pair of formfitting shorts. She proceeded to ask Sasuke out on a date. He told her "sorry you seem like a nice person, but no." and she cried and ran off. She did this daily now, switching between the two boys because she couldn't decide which of the two was 'cooler'! This irked both of the raven haired boys, but then he and Naruto were walking home one day and saw one of their classmates. Hinata was her name and he walked up to introduce himself. He quickly found that she wasn't like all of the other girls in class. She was from the Hyuuga clan and could care less what clan he was from. Some afternoons were spent playing at the park with Hinata and Naruto. He thought that her indigo hair was really cute, but he would never tell her or Naruto that!

Every morning they would get up and start on their routine, and as the end of the two weeks rolled around they had noticed a lot changes in themselves. Naruto and Sasuke were getting stronger and faster each day, and their chakra control and reserves were increasing in leaps and bounds. They could both hold the twenty five pebbles to their skin for two hours. Their progress in chakra leaping was slower however, and they still worked at it every day. Minabi said that they still were using five times the chakra that was needed for the technique. This depressed both of them, but by this time the 'never give up' attitude that Naruto expressed had instilled its way into Sasuke. He would not be beaten by his younger brother!

They sparred every day for longer and longer times. Now the thirty minute spar of two weeks ago was only a light one. They always went all out when they sparred with taijutsu and every time they were beaten and bloody when done. By the end of the two weeks Sasuke had an extremely better outlook on how his life was going, despite what was going to happen the next day. He now looked forward to the academy and seeing his friends every day. They were both still depressed about what was going to happen, but they had promised each other that they wouldn't let it get to them.

The day was finally upon them. Naruto got out of bed and went to the shower. He had known this day was coming but still dreaded it. He finished getting ready and went downstairs to say goodbye to his mother, who he'd never see again. By the time he got there Sasuke was waiting. They both gave her a hug and told her that they were going on a field trip and wouldn't be back for a couple days. She smiled telling them that shed see them when they got home. They left the compound with tears in their eyes.

By the time the two reached the academy they had dried their tears, knowing it had to be done. Since the night they were told about the massacre, they had heard many more rumors from inside the Uchiha about coup d'état. This reassured them that what was happening was inevitable. They still didn't have to like it though.

They walked into their class and greeted all of their classmates with smiles. Iruka was already at the head of the class and it was scheduled to start in another ten minutes. They sat in their seats and started talking to the friends that they had made. "I'm excited for this field trip!" Choji said and Naruto agreed. Shikamaru was napping at his desk and Kiba was doing the same. "Alright class settle down. We're going on a field trip that will be for three days, and we will be going to the outskirts of the village to a mountain campsite. Have you all brought everything you will need?" Iruka addressed the class. "Yes, Iruka sensei!" they all chorused together. "Alright good. We had better get going then, follow me everyone." He said and everyone stood up. The chunin exited the class and his students followed him outside.

Once outside, Iruka led the students to the village's west gate, which was closest to the academy. He ran at a slow pace for him so that the students could keep up. When they all arrived at the gate he turned right just outside of it. He led them into a forest that seemed to stretch for miles. They all ran until they reached a clearing. Iruka told them that it was another ten miles to the campsite from there so they could take a break. The students and their guardians sat down and talked amongst themselves for the duration for the break.

Meanwhile back in the village, Kakashi, Itachi and Shisui were getting ready for what would happen that night. They had spent the morning planning for every possible scenario that they could think of and now they were making sure that they had all the equipment that they would need. "How do you think the boys are doing?" Kakashi asked the Uchiha. While the Cyclops jounin had never met them before their meeting in the Hokage's chambers he watched over them every once in a while to gauge their skills and to get better acquainted with them from afar. "Well Kakashi, I'm sure that they are pretty shaken up by all of this. I think they will pull through though." Itachi replied while he looked through his supplies. Shisui nodded saying that they were both strong enough to handle it. It was almost time for them to enact the plan, so Itachi and Shisui bid their goodbyes to Kakashi and headed for the compound. It wouldn't be time for another two hours so they went their separate ways and started doing things that they would normally be doing. Itachi went to train by himself and Shisui went to his home.

Back with the boys they had just gotten to the campsite that they were supposed to stay at for the next few days. They were setting up their tent when Iruka announced what they would be doing. "Alright class gather around me. For this field trip we will be identifying and taking samples of the plants in this forest, as a ninja you will need to know what can harm you and what can help you in an environment like this. I want you to finish setting up camp and we will get started tomorrow." He said and the students went back to setting up camp. Soon every one of them was sleeping soundly in their tents save Naruto and his brother. "Do you think Itachi and Shisui are okay Naruto? They do have to go against the whole clan." Sasuke asked his brother, who reassured him that they'd be fine, Miko joined in with Naruto telling them that their brother was one of the strongest in the clan. After that they decided to get some sleep.

The next morning Naruto, Sasuke and Miko woke up with all of the other students and their guardians. They exited their tent and found that breakfast was already cooking. It was the meat from a few rabbits the students had found after Iruka told them to go and hunt for the class's breakfast. The twins sat by the fire and watched as it cooked. Miko joined them moments later and they all started talking. They talked about what they'd be doing today, wondered if it would be hard. Anything and everything except the one thing they all wanted to talk about: the massacre.

They had decided the night before that they wouldn't talk about it anymore. It would only bring pain to talk about something that they had no control over and they knew it. Soon the other kids and their guardians joined them at the fire and everyone was having a light conversation when Iruka walked out of his tent. "Alright kids, like I explained yesterday, you will be exploring this forest collecting plants and herbs that I will help you identify whenever everyone gets back. Adults will accompany you, but you shouldn't run into any trouble. After breakfast I want you all to spread out and start looking. Your mission is to bring back fifteen unique plants to the campsite. Once everyone is back I will help in identifying them all."

Everyone confirmed they understood with a chorus of, "Yes sensei!" and quickly went to eat breakfast. After Naruto and Sasuke were finished they set out with Miko to explore. Naruto and Sasuke wanted to find different plants so that Iruka could identify them and learn more. The first plant that Naruto picked was a purple flower, with thorns on each side of the stem. It had leaves that were grouped in threes. Sasuke's was a vine that also had thorns but didn't have a bloom. They searched the forest for hours until they both had fifteen plants in their bags. "Alright brother, time to head back." Naruto said and smiled at Sasuke. His brother agreed and they headed back to camp.

When they arrived they saw that they weren't the first to finish. Shikamaru, Sakura and Hinata had all finished before them. Iruka told them to lay out all of their plants with the others and he would explain what they were when everyone returned. The boys decided to converse with those that had finished already. They walked over to Shikamaru and Hinata and asked how their search had gone.

"It was troublesome; I got stuck with thorns I don't know how many times." Shikamaru told them and they laughed. "I-It wasn't t-too bad" Hinata said, they had noticed that she stuttered quite a lot around both Naruto and Sasuke, but was slowly becoming more outgoing . Sakura watched this interaction and felt left out. She wondered why the boys didn't want to talk to her. She sat by herself and waited for the others to get back; thinking about what she could do to get them to notice her.

Soon everyone had returned and Iruka started to explain the different plants to them. They found that Sasuke's first plant was a greenbrier, which could be mixed with other plants to make a paralytic poison. Naruto's first plant had been a purple rose, which Iruka told them was very rare. Its petals could be used for medicines while its stem could be used for poisons. They all listened to their sensei raptly, trying to learn all they could. '_It might just save our lives one day' _Naruto thought. By the time Iruka was finished explaining them all it was mid-afternoon.

"Alright for the rest of the day you will be sparring. Pick a partner and spar lightly, taijutsu only." Naruto and Sasuke got up, excited for the workout that ensued. They went a ways away from camp and started sparring. It was nothing new to them; they did this almost every day now. Naruto blocked a knee to the face and grinned, before sweep kicking his brother's legs knocking him to the ground. Sasuke got up and they started to trade punches. Before long they were both dripping sweat and getting tired. It was starting to get dark by this time, so Iruka told everyone to go and get some sleep. Hearing this everyone retreated into their tents as Iruka watched over the campsite.

That was how the whole trip went. In the mornings they would go out in search of plants. After the first day Iruka told them each what to go and find. Naruto and Sasuke were getting better at identifying what was what when it came to plants and they were happy about it. On the second day that they were out in the forest they came across Sakura and Ino, who was another girl from their class. Ino had long platinum blonde hair that she kept in a ponytail and wore a loose sleeveless purple turtleneck that showed her midriff. She had bandages from her midriff down to her knees on both sides. She also wore a purple skirt that was split on both sides to cover the bandages on her legs. She ran up to them showing them all of the plants she had gathered and they completely ignored her, for she was exactly like Sakura. She was a fangirl! Sakura stood watching her friend being ignored by the two of them. She decided then and there that she would confront them, ask them why they seemed to hate her and her friend. Ino soon got the hint that they didn't want to be around her and went back to Sakura before leaving with the pinkette. After the boys found all of the plants they were assigned they would go back to camp and spar with the other students. They didn't always pair off with each other though. On the second day Naruto paired with Choji and Sasuke and Kiba sparred. On the third day they sparred with each other. Sakura and Ino didn't talk to them again after their encounter in the forest. Sakura told the blonde that she would talk to them and tell her what they said. The boys still kept to their morning routine though and were tired after each day. Needless to say they both slept very well each night. The other students would sometimes ask what they were doing when they did their chakra control exercises. They would only reply with "training", to the ire of most of the students there. Tonight was the last night they would be out of the village and Sasuke and Naruto were dreading going home. Neither of them had any idea what they would find at the compound. They both hoped that it wouldn't be too horrible.

The next morning Iruka woke them all up early and told them that they would be returning home that day. He also mentioned they would have a quiz when they got to class the next day on what they had learned. It made most of the students groan, everyone hated Iruka's quizzes. All of the students packed up and soon they were on their way back.

The walk back to the village was a very solemn one for Naruto, Sasuke and Miko. All three were wondering what had become of the clan compound and how the plan had gone. They made idle conversation with the other students to keep their minds off of it but it still weighed on them the whole way.

When they reach the halfway point Iruka told the students that they would take a break. Everyone sat down and drank water before talking a little to pass the time. This was when Sakura approached Naruto and Sasuke. "Why don't you guys like me? You never talk to me and you seem to avoid me every chance you get! You do the same thing with my friend Ino. We never did anything to you, what gives? I don't understand!" she said pouting. "You really want to know why we avoid you Sakura. Fine, it's because all you seem to be to us both is a fangirl. You follow all the 'hot' guys around and expect them to like you because of how you look, and we never see you training or trying to better yourself. You are smart but it seem to me that that is all you have going for you at the moment. Maybe if you actually tried to work on your ninja skills we would feel differently. The same goes for Ino; I never see her training or doing anything, but following guys around." Naruto looked at her and said seriously. As he was speaking tears filled her eyes and when he finished she ran off without saying another word. "Don't you think that was a little harsh Naruto?" Sasuke asked him. "No I don't, she needed to hear it. What if we're put on the same team as her and get killed because she never works? She needs to take her career seriously and what I just said might help her do that." He replied honestly. Sasuke nodded understanding where he was coming from. After that, Iruka told them it was time to get back to walking. They all stood up and started on their way towards the village.

Soon the gates of the leaf village came into view and when the students saw them they all ran towards them, happy to finally be home. Naruto and Sasuke hung back with Miko. They were still afraid of what they would see. "Come on boys; let's go to the Hokage's office. I'm sure that he will know what we should do," she said and led them to the Hokage's tower. Truthfully she was just as scared of what she would find at the compound as they were. When they arrived at the old Hokage's office they were let in immediately.

"Ah, boys, you have returned. It is good to see you after all of this has happened." The Hokage said solemnly, looking down. "I'll take that as confirmation that our clan is gone." Miko said not asking. "Yes Miko, and before you ask you will be allowed to see what has become of your old compound, but only once more. It will hold to many bad memories for you once you see it in the condition it's in. You will not be living there as I have previously told you I have a house for you and what is left of your clan already prepared for you. I want you all to go and get the things you wish to keep from the compound. After today it will be closed to all visitors until I deem that it should be habited by your clan again. You may go with Kakashi to meet your brother and husband at the gates of the compound; they will be waiting for you there." He told them in all seriousness. They all saw the sadness in his eyes as he told them they would not be allowed to return after that day. "Thank you Hokage-sama, we will take our leave now." Miko said as she ushered the boys out. They followed her sadly to where they would finally see their brother again and what had become of their home.

Itachi and Shisui were both waiting for them at the gates of the Uchiha compound. When they saw it they didn't know what to think. The gates had big holes in them from some sort of jutsu, and they were barely attached to the hinges that held them up. Itachi looked at his brothers with sadness in his eyes. He had not wanted either of them to see their old home in this condition. He shuddered at the thought of what he had done only two nights ago. When they approached he waved them over and greeted them.

"Hey boys, I'm guessing you've already seen the Hokage." They nodded.

"Alright well then I guess it's time we went inside. We are here to get anything that we want to keep for sentimental value and to find any and all Uchiha scrolls, weapons and libraries. We will clean this place out completely and bring them to our new home. I'm sorry you have to go through this too, but it is necessary." They all nodded understanding.

Itachi opened the gates and what they saw next made both Naruto and Sasuke vomit on the spot. There was blood everywhere. It stank of death so much that they could taste the blood in their mouths. Once the regained control of their stomachs they looked around and were horrified. There were no more bodies because the Hokage had them all buried beforehand, but they could both tell that it had been a bloodbath and a true massacre. Blood splattered almost every wall as they started walking inside; they saw that it was a ghost town. No one had been left alive. They all split up with Sasuke and Naruto together, they looked for anything they could find that would be of any value. Soon the insides of the gates were piled ten foot high with scrolls, weapons, different sealing tags, and many other things. Naruto and Sasuke explored their home and found the spots where there mother and father had died. They vomited again thinking of how horrible it must have been for them.

"I gave them both quick deaths." Itachi told them, tears in his eyes. They could tell it had almost killed their brother to kill his own parents. "Let's get something that we can all remember them by." Naruto suggested picking up a framed photo of the whole family together. It was the only one ever taken with all of them in it.

"Thank you Naruto, we can put this in our living room." Itachi said regaining some of his composure and putting on a smile for the two of them. They all continued to look through their home to find anything else that they wanted to keep. After emptying it of everything they would keep they sadly moved on.

About an hour later everyone from the last of the Uchiha clan met together at the gates of the compound to say their last goodbyes to what was once their home. All of them were somber and had sad expressions on their faces. They knew that this would be the last time anyone stepped foot in there for a long time. Itachi, Shisui and Miko started sealing everything they could into sealing scrolls that they labeled either 'jutsu', 'weapons', or 'sentimental' once everything was sealed they all took one last look at the compound and set out for the Hokage tower. When they arrived they went inside feeling very depressed and all wanting the day to be over already.

They walked into the Hokage's office and he greeted them. "I'm assuming you all are done going through your previous home? Good, I want to sincerely apologize for how this has all gone down. If I could have done anything to change it I would have." He looked down. "I will lead you to your new home. The house I have prepared for you was once the home of a very famous ninja, so treat it well. You may use it however you wish. No one will disturb you inside the grounds, and if you need to take a few days off from ninja duties, I understand. Before we go I must make the announcement to the village." They nodded, no one of them wanting to speak.

The Hokage led them outside and told his ANBU to make an announcement that everyone was to assemble outside the tower. After about a half hour everyone was finally assembled. He and the last Uchiha jumped to the top of the tower. The Hokage looked down on the village. "Today is a very sad day for this village hidden in the leaves" he started. "One month ago I learned of a coup d'état that one of our very own clans was planning against the village. They didn't like the way they were treated. So they started to plan an attack against the village and its people. The attack was supposed to happen in two weeks and if it had succeeded many people would have lost their lives and this village would be in chaos right now. That clan was eradicated, except for five members that are still very much loyal to this village. They came to me with the plan that there clan members started and we all agreed on what had to be done. I tried multiple times to get the clan to see reason and not attack. Two of their own was planted inside and tried everything they could to make them see that the way they felt was unfounded! We never mistreated this clan in any way! They would not listen and were planning to do everything in their power to crush this village. The clan that I'm talking about was the Uchiha clan and these five who stand before you today should be treated as heroes of this village. If they hadn't stepped forward, I'm sure that this village would be in shambles at this very moment, for that treat them with the respect and honor that they deserve." The Hokage finished and there were gasps among all of the villager's ninja and civilian alike. They all wondered what had transpired when they heard and saw flashes of jutsu going off in the Uchiha district and now they knew what had happened. Some of the villagers wretched at the thought of a whole clan being killed, and some of their glares toward Naruto changed when they heard what he had done, what they all had done. While they still didn't trust the boy they knew they still had their lives because of him and his four other family members. They all started talking to each other about what had happened, saying things, 'they're the only ones left of the Uchiha clan?', 'I feel sorry for them', 'it must have been hard turning in your own clan like that' and 'maybe the demon isn't such a demon after all. Only time will tell now'. The last five Uchiha listened to this and thought unanimously that they just wanted this to be over. Their heads were hung low in sadness at the loss of their families; they all had tears in their eyes. The Hokage could tell that they wanted to leave so he made one final announcement. "From this day forward the Uchiha district is strictly off limits to anyone and everyone. If you are caught inside its walls you will be sentenced to no less than a year in the leaf's jail cells. This is now law. You are all dismissed to go back to your daily routines." He looked at the five that stood before him and motioned for them to follow him quickly.

Hiruzen led them to a compound right outside the village. It had a ten foot tall wall that was surrounding it on all sides. He quickly unlocked the gate and bit his finger before putting some of his blood on the ground inside. It was absorbed right away until the ground wasn't even red anymore. When they stepped inside the gate they saw a huge yard in front of a house that was bigger than any they had seen inside the village. It looked to have two stories. They looked around and noticed that the yard went all the way around the house and the left side was littered with training dummies that looked as if the hadn't been used in ages. On the right side there was clear open space.

They followed the old man up to the house and he unlocked the door. "This will be your new home. Go on inside and explore as much as you want. Everything inside the walls surrounding the house is yours now. The deed will be transferred into Itachi's name in the morning. I'm sure that you all need to go and get some rest after what you experienced today." They all nodded and went inside. "Hokage-sama, who owned this house before us?" Naruto asked, and the old man smiled before saying "a very powerful and well known ninja of this village. Before he died he told me that I could give it to whomever I thought could use it the most." Hiruzen chuckled and disappeared in a swirl of leaves. The five new owners of the house just shrugged and thought nothing of it. They were all too mentally and physically exhausted to think of anything but sleep. They each found a room with a bed in it, with Shisui and Miko sharing a bed, and were asleep in a matter of minutes.


	6. The Graduation Exam!

**A/N- Here's chapter 6, I hope everyone likes it. I'm happy to see that people are reviewing. So read and review **** Let's get to the story!**

**Four years after the Uchiha Massacre:**

**Naruto and Sasuke's age: 12**

**Itachi's age: 19**

**Shisui's and Miko's age: 19 and 20**

Four years have passed since we've last seen our favorite twins.

A lot has happened since the Uchiha massacre, and those four years have been long and hard for them. They settled into their new home with the last of their family very quickly, and all five of them were almost inseparable for a long time. They all took one month off shinobi duties to acclimate into their new lives. While on their month off they relaxed and spent most of their time with each other, as family was more important to them than anything at the time.

After a while they began to reopen themselves up to the people around them. Itachi, Shisui and Miko soon resumed their duties as ninja and practically threw themselves into the job. They were all ANBU so the Hokage had thought it prudent to make them a team for the time being. They took on any and all A to S-ranked missions that they could, drowning themselves in their ninja careers. During this time Minabi helped Shisui and Miko awaken their Eternal Mangekyo Sharingans. He would not pass on the sage sharingan to them though stating that having two would cause problems down the road, but gave them hope by telling them that it was inheritable through genetics. This meant that once Itachi found a suitable wife and she gave birth there would be another wielder of the immensely powerful eyes that Itachi now possessed.

He had begun training his eyes immediately after the massacre and was now finally up to three tomoe in each eye. Minabi had told him that this would be the time that he could start to experiment with them. Anyone that went up against the raven haired clan head met their death quickly and easily. It seemed as if no one stood a chance against him. This was the reason that he was currently out of the village on a solo S-ranked assassination mission. The Hokage had been against the idea at first but Itachi had insisted almost two years ago that he be allowed to take these missions alone.

He never failed and almost always came back without a scratch on him though so the Hokage allowed him to continue. Itachi took them to take his mind off of the past. What he was made to do still haunted him every day. He didn't blame the Hokage though, far from it in fact. The one he blamed solely for the act of atrocity on his clan was Danzo Shimura. The man was an old war hawk that ran Konoha's underground and the ROOT program. Itachi swore the day he killed his clan that he would make the man pay for what he had been made to do.

On a lighter note Shisui and Miko were as happy as they could ever be with their second child on the way. The two of them were more in love now than they had ever been, and showed it often to each other. They had named their first born son Seitarou, he was almost two now and Miko had retired as a ninja to take care of him when he was born. Their next child was said to be a girl by the medics at the hospital and they were planning to name her Aiko, which meant 'beloved'.

Neither of them could wait for her to be born in only a few more short months. The two of them had mastered the Mangekyo Sharingan to the point of full Susanoo in almost a year ago. They both trained together whenever they could, and even though Miko was no longer an active shinobi she had promised herself that she wouldn't let her skills dull.

After their children were old enough to start at the academy she planned to resume her duties if allowed, albeit at a much lighter pace. She wanted to become a jonin sensei. Shisui was just like Itachi. He couldn't forget that night and wanted revenge on Danzo for what they had been made to do. He would also go on missions solo, but only at B and A-rank, at Miko's request. He found that while he was on missions he didn't think about the past and what had happened. That day still brought pain to all of their very souls. They set that date of December 19th aside every year to remember those that had fallen. It was always a day of sadness at the Uchiha residence.

Naruto and Sasuke had come very far in the last four years. They trained diligently every day to achieve their goals. Neither of them knew who was really behind the kill order on their clan or who Danzo even was so their goals were quite different that you might think. Ever since Naruto had heard about what the fourth did to save the village from the Kyuubi he had wanted to become Hokage. He wanted to make the village a better place so that something like what happened to their clan never happened again. He wanted everyone in the village to respect him and his fellow clan members. He wanted to bring the village into a peaceful time, where the clans didn't dislike each other and weren't separated by power, but were equal in everyone's eyes.

After the Uchiha massacre this dream only strengthened in his mind and he worked even harder to achieve it. He told no one except for his family about his ambition and they all backed him and told him to go for it. This had made him immensely happy. Sasuke was a different matter though. He strived to follow in Itachi's footsteps and become an ANBU captain. He wanted to become strong and be able to take on dangerous missions for the sake of the village. He wanted to protect it from anyone that posed a threat, just like his big brother did every day. This hadn't surprised Itachi though. In truth he had hope it would turn out this way. But in secret he didn't want Sasuke to stop at ANBU captain, no when the time came for the eldest of the three to step back into the shadows of the village, he hoped that Sasuke would follow him, all the way to Danzo's position when he was old enough. One thing was certain and abundantly clear about the whole of what was left of the Uchiha clan, they had a deep and unconditional love for the village that they lived in and would protect it no matter what!

Naruto and Sasuke's training had progressed in leaps and bounds. They learned from many sensei in the four years after the massacre. Minabi was still their main private sensei. He conditioned their bodies relentlessly to the point that when they released their seals they were twice as fast as any student in the academy, about mid to high genin in rank of speed. They were still nowhere near as fast as a certain green spandex wearing genin, who was most certainly mid chunin with his weights off, but they could sure run! Right now they were sitting at 50 pounds each. Minabi had told them they wouldn't be increasing them again until they became genin.

Their morning routine now consisted of 200 of each exercise that they had been given the weekend that they had begun training seriously, along with three laps around all of Konoha. Their taijutsu was more solid than ever although it was still only the academy style taijutsu. They continued to spar every single day for at least an hour. Kakashi had helped them both add a few more ninjutsu to their repertoire as well. These jutsu were all different fire style jutsu, except for one that Sasuke had learned which was of the lightning style. They had found that in addition to the standard fire affinity that most Uchiha had they both had one more. Itachi had seen this while looking at their chakra systems with his sage sharingan. Naruto's second affinity was wind and Itachi had told him it was a very strong one. It was the same with Sasuke except his second affinity was lightning.

Itachi told them this was very rare and that they should take advantage of it whenever they became genin. He also told them that their second affinities were both stronger than their fire affinities. This had confused the older Uchiha at first, but upon mentioning it to Minabi, the fox explained that unknown to most this was actually common with Uchiha that had more than one nature affinity. They either possessed a very strong fire affinity or a mid-grade one with a very strong affinity for another element. Neither of the boys had tried learning any more jutsu for their stronger element yet as they were told to wait until they were genin.

The boys chakra control had also increase drastically. They both mastered the chakra leaping exercise and went to a new exercise that Minabi called 'kunai standing'. The exercise was actually pretty simple all they had to do was balance a kunai on both of their hands and the tops of their feet only using chakra. He had told them to go one kunai at a time. They both had literally exhaled in relief at this and he had laughed at them. It had taken them two years but they had finished that exercise finally and Sasuke was now working on kunai balancing and Naruto was working on kunai spinning.

Sasuke was working on kunai balancing because Minabi wanted him to increase his reserves as much as he could. In the exercise he had to balance on a kunai stuck in the ground with only his chakra and one finger. Too much to one side or the other and you fell off, having to restart, and if you didn't reinforce the tips of your fingers to an insane degree you would not be able to take the pain of standing on the point of the kunai. Naruto however had reserves to spare, so Minabi started him on the hardest non elemental chakra control exercise there was, which was kunai spinning.

In this exercise the person would spin a kunai on their hand with only their chakra. Minabi had told the green eyed boy to do it until he could spin five kunai on each arm. To this day he could only do the two on his hands. Even using shadow clones every time he wasn't getting anywhere. He had resigned himself to never give up though, and he still hadn't. Sasuke was almost at the point by now that he would be starting on that very same exercise soon as well. Shisui helped them train their minds, and would drill them in tactics and strategy every week at least twice a week. Miko had promised them that she would teach them kenjutsu when they became genin. Itachi also helped to train them, but his training had only started three months ago and it was very slow going. He trained them in the art of stealth, he would give them both an objective, and they had to complete it without being seen by anyone. It was difficult but they were slowly getting the hang of it. By this time they were both mid to high genin in skill level, but had yet to pass the test because the test was coming up soon.

Their everyday lives had changed around the village as well since the incident. When they would eat in restaurants they were shown a lot of respect, and admiration for what they had 'done' for the village. Even Naruto didn't receive the glares he once did anymore. The villagers were still very wary of the 'demon container', but had started to treat him with at least a little respect. He figured that it would be a while before they truly trusted him, and while he didn't understand why they couldn't just see past the fact that he had Minabi in him, he put up with it nonetheless.

He had promised himself that he would earn their respect one day. The twin's classes had been pretty much the same though. They learned as much as they could from Iruka, and continued to make many more friends. Sakura and Ino had even started to come around from their usual fangirl selves, to seemingly hardworking kunoichi. Oftentimes they would stay after school and have shogi tourneys with Shikamaru, their lazy Nara friend. They still had yet to beat him, even once. They would also go to the park to hang out with Hinata and sometimes some of the other girls in class too. Kiba always wanted to prove himself to the boys, and so did Choji, so they would spar with them both at least three times a week now. The Inuzuka and Akimichi were both getting stronger, the boys could tell. Shino and Sasuke got along very well. They were both quiet for the most part and Sasuke didn't mind his insects at all while Naruto found to be a little on the creepy side. Naruto enjoyed Shikamaru's company much more, but wasn't nearly on bad terms with the Aburame.

-NUTPS-

The sun was slowly rising over the village to signify that a new day was about to start. The boys had been waiting for this day all week. It would be their last day at the academy. They would be taking the graduation exam and finally becoming genin today! We find our twins sleeping in their bed in the new clan compound of the Uchiha. The house had two stories and a basement that they had yet to really explore because they couldn't get in due to a very intricate seal protecting its entrance. On the first floor there was a medium sized living area which branched off into the kitchen towards the back of the house and to the right there was a hallway. It was along this hall that the bathroom was and also three bedrooms before you reached the staircase to the second floor. On the second floor there were many more bedrooms, six in total. There were also two bathrooms on that floor and another medium sized living area that they used as a den. Everyone chose to sleep upstairs in bedrooms that weren't very close together, for privacy. The baby's nursery was downstairs in the room closest to the stairs.

The boys slowly started to wake up, thanks to their biological clocks kicking in. Naruto opened his eyes and rolled out of bed. He had a huge grin on his face, today was graduation day! He went downstairs after finishing his morning routine of a shower, brushing his teeth, and changing. He now wore blue cargo pants and a black t-shirt with the Uchiha clan symbol of a red and white fan on the back and two inch and a half wide orange strips going down the front. He wore his kunai pouch on his left thigh and his shuriken were on his waist on the right side. He hadn't wanted anything to interfere if he needed to undo his resistance seals.

When he arrived downstairs he saw that Sasuke and Shisui were already at the table along with Miko. She had baby Seitarou in the high chair next to her, feeding him. Naruto joined his family at the table, but noticed that one was missing.

"Is Itachi still out on that mission?" he asked, to no one in particular.

They had all had to deal with the clan head's rather frequent absences since the massacre, but it still didn't hurt the green eyed boy any less.

"Yes Naruto, he is. Should be back in time for the ceremony though if everything goes well." Shisui explained.

He too hoped that he would see his best friend by the end of the day. Itachi's obsession with missions of the highest caliber had been worrying him and everyone else in the compound for months now. The two brothers sat down and started in on their breakfast. They all made light conversation as they ate. Soon the boys were finished and they told Shisui and Miko goodbye and that they would see them later.

Naruto and Sasuke quickly made their way to the academy gates. Their new house wasn't quite as far from it as the old Uchiha compound.

They walked inside and to Iruka's classroom. When they arrived inside the classroom and were seated, it wasn't long before Iruka made his presence known.

"Good morning class! I'm sure that all of you are very excited for today, as it may very well be your last day here." He smiled at his class, they had come so far in the last four years, and he had no doubt that all of them would pass the test with flying colors. "Alright so I have no doubt that you would all love to hear one last lecture from your sensei, but let's get started on the testing." He stated and saw that the students perked up visibly at that.

He called Hinata's name, and told her to transform into him, do the substitution jutsu, and make a simple clone. She nodded and did all three perfectly, which was of no surprise to anyone, she was second in the class on the girls side only to Sakura and that was mostly because of Sakura's book smarts.

He called everyone's name one by one. Sakura, Kiba, Ino, Choji, Shikamaru, and Shino all passed with flying colors, just as Hinata had done. Soon it was Sasuke's turn and he had something to prove to his little brother today. Iruka told him what to do and he quickly performed the transformation and substitution flawlessly. When it came to the clone though he used a different hand sign which surprised everyone, especially Naruto and Iruka!

'_He can't do that jutsu can he?'_ Naruto thought, as did Iruka.

Sure enough Sasuke said "shadow clone jutsu" and there were two perfect clones of Sasuke standing before the class. Not only were they perfect, they were also just as solid as the real one. Sasuke was visibly drained though after that, And breathing hard.

'_Take that Naruto! I can finally do your little trick too!'_ Sasuke thought, but he knew that it would be a long time, if ever that he would be able to use them like Naruto had been.

Iruka was surprised to say the least. How could an academy student even know about that jutsu, let alone use it! "Amazing Sasuke, you pass! How is it that you've come across that jutsu?" he asked the boy. Sasuke would only reply with, "you'll find out soon enough Iruka sensei," and then he grinned and walked back to his seat.

Iruka was confused, but called the last student down.

"Naruto Uchiha, will you please come down here for your test," he said and Naruto got out of his seat to join the chunin in the front. As with Sasuke he performed the first two jutsu flawlessly. He then used the same sign as Sasuke and made not two, not three, but ten perfect solid clones of himself.

"To answer your question from earlier Iruka sensei, my brother learned this jutsu from me. I've known it since I was a lot younger, but it seems as if Sasuke had some tricks he didn't tell me about." Iruka was floored! To have not one but two academy student perform a jutsu that he himself could barely use was just ridiculous!

'_He summoned ten clones! That takes jounin level chakra reserves! What the hell?!' _he thought but aloud he congratulated Naruto and the rest of his class on passing the genin exam.

"You're all genin now, ninja of this village. Tomorrow you'll come and get your team assignments. Come up here and get your headbands." He said. All of the students walked to the front of the class and got their headbands. Then Iruka told them to get some sleep and meet him at the academy the next day.

The boys exited the academy excited that they were finally ninja. They had decided that morning to go to Ichiraku's for lunch so that's where they were both headed. When they arrived Naruto ordered two miso ramen for both of them and sat down with his brother.

"The hell Sasuke, I didn't know that you could use shadow clones, since when?" he asked and the elder brother grinned.

"Only last week, and three clones is my max right now so I can't use it in battle, but I had Minabi teach it to me so that we would be on more even ground, when it comes to training." He explained and Naruto just laughed and told him that they were on even ground.

"Don't forget that you beat me almost every time we spar in taijutsu, and you're naturally better at throwing weapons than me." He stated boosting his brother's ego more than he had wanted to. Sasuke smiled at his brother's praise.

Their food was ready, so they began to eat their lunch. "Who do you think we will get as a sensei Naruto?" Sasuke asked as they ate. The green eyed boy shrugged, "I don't know, but I hope it's someone strong!" he exclaimed finishing his first bowl and starting on the next.

After they were finished eating the boys decided to go to a training ground and spar for a while, since they had nothing better to do. They arrived at training ground 7 and went to opposite ends before nodding to each other and unsealing their resistance seals.

"Do you want to go all out this time Sasuke?" Naruto asked and his brother grinned.

"Sure, but don't expect to win little brother!" he charged Naruto going in to punch him in the chest. Naruto twisted out of the way and jumped back, deciding that he'd be the first to unleash a jutsu this time. He quickly went through hand signs and yelled "fire style: phoenix flower jutsu!" He shot several balls of flame at his brother and then followed the jutsu with throwing a kunai at him. Sasuke was hard pressed to dodge all five of the flaming spheres, he went left and then right letting three pass by him. He then jumped into the air quickly as his brother launched another kunai at him. He deflected it with his own and then threw the weapon at Naruto. Followed by doing the hand signs for the new lightning style jutsu he had learned.

Naruto dodged to the right but Sasuke landed on the ground close to him. He finished the hand signs and yelled, "lighting style: static current!" He put his hands on the ground and sent the jutsu toward his brother. The ground was ripped up by the electric current running through it. It sped toward Naruto and the boy knew that he didn't want to be hit by that so he jumped into the air. Sasuke jumped after him throwing three shuriken. Naruto couldn't move in the air so he summoned a shadow clone to take the hit for him. Two of the shuriken hit the clone but it dispelled before the third had and the last shuriken sped through the smoke of the dispelled clone hitting Naruto hard in his chest. The green eye boy winced in pain but started forming more hand signs. "Wind style: air bullet!" he exclaimed shooting a compressed ball of air toward Sasuke, too fast for him to dodge. The bullet threw him backwards into the ground.

Naruto landed and went after his brother, deciding that he would start a taijutsu bout with him. Sasuke was up by the time Naruto reached him and defended against the punch to his ribs. He sent one of his own towards Naruto's head. His brother ducked and sweep kicked his feet out from under him before taking a kunai and putting it to Sasuke throat.

"Looks like I win this time Sasuke. I believe that makes us even at 35 to 35." He said remembering their rivalry. His brother grunted and pushed him off of him.

"You won't be so lucky next time Naruto. I'll win!" Sasuke said and then looked at his brother. They both started laughing, knowing that it had been a good match on both of their parts. After their little spar the boys decided that it was time to go home and get some sleep for in the morning.

Soon they were sleeping in their bed soundly. They had been congratulated by Shisui and Miko when they arrived at the compound, but told them that they were heading to bed, to rest for the next day. Shisui and Miko both understood of course and were happy for the two boys that had become their little brothers.

The next morning came in what seemed like seconds for our twins. They woke up early to get a start on their morning routines. This had become normal for them and they set out for a training ground. The village was very quiet at this hour so they found an empty one without much hassle. Soon they were furiously exercising. Sasuke was working on his laps and Naruto started on push-ups. They quickly moved through each exercise and about an hour later they both started working on their respective control exercises.

Sasuke was standing on the point of the kunai with only his chakra holding him up. He had one clone working on it with him. This had become a lot easier for him since Minabi taught him the shadow clone jutsu and he started to progress twice as fast. His goal was to stay on it for an hour straight, when he was able to do this Minabi told him that he could move on to the kunai spinning exercise that Naruto was working on.

Speaking of Naruto, he had fifty clones working on the exercise with him and was still only able to spin two kunai at a time. The green eyed boy had been stuck at this point for weeks now and was determined to get farther by the time he made genin. The real Naruto dispelled his clones slowly thirty minutes after starting and then tried to spin three kunai at a time. By this time two were almost second nature to the boy. He added the third and started molding his chakra in order to spin the blade. Slowly but surely, the kunai started to spin. He kept it going at the slow pace for as long as he could but in the end it only spun for ten minutes before he lost control and it fell off of his left forearm.

"Yes! Finally, I was able to move forward!" he exclaimed despite the fact that it was only by a little.

His brother was done with his chakra control by that point too, so the boys headed to the academy. It was finally time for them to get their sensei and they couldn't wait to meet him!

They arrived at the academy ten minutes early and sat in their seats waiting for Iruka to get there and announce the teams already. Most wouldn't guess this by the boys' patient expressions all the time but the two of them hated to wait!

Finally everyone was in class and Iruka walked into the room, "Alright class the day is finally here, you won't be in my class anymore after this. You will be genin of this village! Do us all proud, it has been a pleasure teaching you all. Now as for the team assignments." Iruka started name off teams, but he hadn't called any of the names from the top of the class yet. He had just finished with naming team six.

"Team 7 will be Naruto Uchiha, Sasuke Uchiha, and Sakura Haruno! The jounin sensei for this team will be Kakashi Hatake." He said and both boys were relieved to hear that they would be together, and upon hearing that they would be with a sensei that they were at least a little familiar with. Sakura on the other hand was jumping with joy!

'_I'll be on the same team as the two coolest and hottest guys in class! This is perfect, shannaro!'_ she thought giving the boys a look that scared them to death!

Iruka named team 8 next. "Team 8 will be Hinata Hyuuga, Shino Aburame, and Kiba Inuzuka. Your sensei will be Kurenai Yuuhi. Team nine is still in rotation so I will move on to team ten. Shikamaru Nara, Ino Yamanaka, and Choji Akimichi. Your sensei will be Asuma Sarutobi!" Shikamaru gave one look at Ino and thought '_troublesome'_ before putting his head down for a nap. Iruka continued to name teams until everyone in the class was named.

"Alright you will all wait here for your sensei to pick you up. Congratulations again on becoming genin!" he finished and left the classroom.

A whole three hours later, everyone had already been picked up by their sensei except for one. Care to guess which team? Yes it was team seven who were still waiting, and by this time all three of them were getting sick and tired of it.

"Where the hell is this guy?" Sakura said angry that she had to wait for this long. The other two were just as angry, but were keeping it together, although just barely.

"Hey Sasuke, you want to get this bastard for being so late?" Naruto asked his brother.

Sasuke was extremely tired of waiting by this point to and said, "Yeah, what did you have in mind? Sakura you want in too?" he asked the pinkette. She immediately said yes and so the three of them began plotting their revenge on their absent sensei.

Ten minutes later a silver haired jounin was walking towards the classroom. As he got closer he saw the obvious trap that they had laid for him.

'_Really, do they think I'm an idiot? This is child's play!'_ he thought and decided that he would play along this time to see the true scale of the trap and how well they had actually thought it out.

He walked up to the door and slid it open sticking his head just inside so that he would be hit by the eraser stuck at the top. The eraser dropped and he was hit in the head by it, what he didn't expect was the bucket of water also attached to the door. The eraser powder got all over his head and then he was soaked in freezing cold water. That wasn't all though! After being half frozen by the water, he was pelted by a bucket full of pebbles, which left numerous comical bumps on the jonin head.

'_What the hell?! They must be pretty mad! And this wasn't a horrible trap either. They seemed to know I'd purposefully go for it.'_ He thought as he struggled to get over the headache he was given by the rocks. He stepped inside and looked his new genin over. '_Well the two Uchiha look competent, and I already know that they are since I helped train them even if only a little, but I'm sure that the pink haired one is just your average __**fangirl.**__ That could be a problem with these two; she will have to get over that quickly. Good thing I'll be training them. I'm going to put all three of them through utter hell!'_ he finished the thought with an evil gleam in his eyes, which scared the new genin.

"Well my first impression of you all is that you're complete idiots. Meet me on the roof in 2 minutes. Don't be late."

And with an expression that could only be considered as an 'eye smile' he disappeared in a swirl of leaves. This infuriated all three of them! '_How dare he tell us not to be late!'_ they all thought simultaneously. Regardless two minutes later they met their sensei on the roof.

Kakashi looked at his genin before saying, "Alright let's all introduce ourselves. Tell me about your likes, dislikes, hobbies, and dreams for the future."

"Kakashi-sensei what do you mean? Why don't you give us an example?" Sakura said, wanting to know more about their sensei.

"Alright sure, my name is Kakashi Hatake; I like a lot of things, but also dislike a lot of things. I don't feel like telling you any of my hobbies or dreams for the future. See how it's done? Now it's your turn pinky" he said looking at Sakura.

"Well I like a lot of things, training, reading and learning being most important. I also like these two Uchiha sitting beside me, they are so cool!" she blushed and continued, not noticing the facepalm looks on all three of the others faces. "I hate fangirls! My hobbies include helping my mom when she needs it, studying, and…" she paused and blushes bright red again, "my dream for the future is to become a great kunoichi like Tsunade Senju of the legendary three!" she finished proudly.

This little speech earned two different reactions from the other three sitting there. Kakashi was floored as he had had her pegged wrong mostly, this wasn't a fangirl this was an aspiring young kunoichi that was willing to work hard to achieve her goals, not that she didn't have a few fangirl tendencies when it came to Naruto and Sasuke. He was willing to overlook that though, he could tell with her attitude that she would go far!

The two boys respected her a lot more now that she had somewhat put them on the backburner in pursuit of her dreams, Naruto was glad that what he had said all those years ago really stuck with the pinkette.

"Alright not quite what I expected but nevertheless, your turn green eyes." Kakashi said looking at Naruto.

"I love ramen and training with my brother. I like learning new jutsu and hanging out with all of my friends at the academy. I also like the one that truly helped me get strong. I don't like when people judge others without getting to know them. I don't like the way clans are treated in this village, most clans act like they are higher up than everyone because of some special attribute of theirs and it makes my blood boil! No one should be better than someone else because of blood. My hobbies are playing shogi, reading, and training. My dream for the future is to become the best and strongest Hokage that the shinobi world has ever seen!" he finished proudly.

'_Hmmm, that's mostly what I expected him to say. I didn't know he felt so strongly about the clan system though. That dream of his is going to be very difficult to achieve after what happened with his clan.' _Kakashi thought and stated, "Interesting, and what about you Sasuke?"

The older brother thought about it for a while. "I'm a lot like my brother, I love to train and get stronger alongside him, and I like the one who truly made me strong as well. We owe a lot to him. I plan to surpass both of my brothers though! I will train day and night until that day comes! I enjoy hanging out with all of my friends at the academy, but there is one in particular that I like to spend time with..." he paused blushing at the thought of a certain indigo haired girl. "I hate how my brother is treated, even to this day, it makes me sick! I don't like the clan system either and will help my brother in any way he needs me to when it comes to that! My hobbies include training and learning from my brother Itachi. I also enjoy cloud watching with our friend Shikamaru and practicing my weapons skills. My dream for the future is to become an ANBU captain so that I can serve my village and become stronger!" he said surprising Kakashi with his long winded response.

The older Uchiha didn't talk much unless it was to Naruto or his other family members.

"Well you all have very interesting outlooks on life and I look forward to working with you. I will try my best to help you achieve your dreams and goals. We are officially team 7, or that is what I'd like to say, but there is one last test you three must pass before you are really genin. It will be a survival exercise that the four of us will complete together. Meet me tomorrow at training ground 7, I want you there at 8 o'clock sharp, and if I were you I wouldn't eat breakfast. You just might puke!" the silver haired jounin laughed and disappeared without saying another word.

"That was weird" Naruto said and the other two shrugged. "Hey do you guys want to go and get something to eat? We're all a team now so it would probably be best if we spend some time together. Sasuke and I already spend a lot of time training together, but I figure that since you're our teammate too you should be included Sakura" he finished with a smile at the pink haired girl.

Sasuke was surprised at the suggestion, but agreed because he knew it was true. They would be working together from now on, why not spend time together outside of team time. He said yes and so did Sakura, so they headed towards Ichiraku Ramen for lunch. Little did they know, a certain silver haired jounin was determined to watch them to see how they acted together. When he saw that they went to lunch together upon realizing they were a team he almost decided to pass them then and there.

'_These three are a lot different from what I expected and the genin I've tested in the past. Maybe things will be different this time' _he thought hoping to kami that it would be. The man was tired of being assigned genin that had no idea what it took to be actual ninja. He wanted a real team to train, and maybe if he was lucky these three would finally be that team.

The three newbies ate slowly enjoying each other's company. They talked about what it meant to be genin and how they hoped that they passed Kakashi sensei's test in the morning. Naruto and Sasuke found that Sakura actually wasn't that bad to hang around. She was very smart and talked about all kinds of things that interested her. Since Naruto speech to her four years ago she had put everything she had into training. She knew what kind of ninja she was suited to be and had been working on that. She knew one decent genjutsu already and a few very low level healing techniques. This had surprised both Naruto and Sasuke and they had grinned knowing who they could come to after sparring with each other.

Soon the three were finished with their meals and headed home. Sakura bid the two Uchiha goodnight and told them that shed see them in the morning. She enjoyed spending time with the two of them, but she could never decide who was cooler! The boys walked to their home after that and when they got there they were surprised to see Itachi in the living room waiting for them.

"Hello you two! I hear that you've finally become genin, that's great news! Was the test hard? How do you think you'll do with Kakashi's test tomorrow? I've missed you guys!" Itachi greeted them both with a hug which wasn't uncommon; they had all become extremely close since the massacre. Sasuke was the first to respond.

"Yeah we did! The test wasn't that hard and we both knocked the socks off Iruka sensei with our shadow clones." He smiled "I think we will pass his test, it doesn't seem like he'll go that hard on us tomorrow. I've missed you too brother, how did your mission go?" he asked. Naruto agreed with him and wondered the same thing about their brother's mission.

Itachi laughed and told them, "It was nothing that I couldn't handle; i had to assassinate a few ninja that were trespassing in the land of fire without permission from Lord Hokage. I'm glad to see that you two are confident but don't let that go to your head. Remember that he is a jounin. He will have something planned for tomorrow that will be impossible, trust me." The boys nodded. "Now let's have some dinner and then you two can get some rest for in the morning. I'm going to be taking a break from missions for about a week to train with Minabi. This won't be that last time you see me for a while, so don't worry you two."

They smiled at that and told him they were glad he was finally taking a break. The boys had seen very little of Itachi lately and had been starting to worry about him. The week off that he was taking helped to quell those worrisome thoughts, though, and they all had a peaceful dinner around the table together. They made light conversation about Shisui's mission the next day, and about what they would be doing as genin. Everyone in the house was glad to see Itachi home safe, and it made for a much lighter and carefree mood than usual. Soon they had all finished eating and Naruto and Sasuke headed for bed. They knew they would need their rest for in the morning.

The next morning Naruto and Sasuke woke up at their usual predawn time. They wanted to get their workouts finished before the test because they knew that afterwards would be almost impossible. The boys ate a quick breakfast and headed out towards training ground 7. It was around 5:30 by the time they arrived so of course it was empty. They both got started right away, it only took them an hour and a half to finish everything, and then they got started on chakra control. It was around this time that Sakura arrived, wanting to get a little training in herself.

She asked them what they were doing as she walked up noticing that Sasuke was upside down on a kunai and Naruto was spinning three on his hands and arms. "Chakra control," was all they replied with so as not to lose concentration.

Sakura started her morning workout as well, and while it was nowhere near the level that they were at, she impressed both of them. She ran around the training ground to start with, completing five laps before going to push-ups. She did twenty five of these and then thirty sit-ups. After that she did 100 punches and kick on each arm and leg. When she was finished it was almost 8 o'clock and she decided to ask them where she should start on chakra control.

"Well, we started with sticking pebbles to our arms and holding them there, but I think that if you started on tree walking it would benefit the team more." Naruto suggested.

Sakura nodded as she had researched the exercise before, but never tried it. She asked them to show her how it was done and Naruto slowly walked up the tree explaining as he walked. Sakura followed suit and was easily up the tree in around a minute.

"What the hell?! That took us weeks to do. How'd you do that?" Sasuke asked her.

"Well it's probably because I don't have that much chakra to begin with. For me it's a lot easier to control, so this comes almost naturally."

Naruto smiled and told her to run up and down the tree, and that it would help her increase her reserves. She started doing this and soon she started to get tired, so she stopped and took a break. She didn't want to get too tired for the test today. They all sat and talked, wondering where Kakashi was. It was 9:30 before he finally got there.

"You're late Kakashi-sensei!" they all said and he laughed.

"Well you see there was a black cat that crossed my path, so I had to take the long way around."

Naruto and Sasuke knew about his excuses by now even if they had only trained with him for a short while.

"Liar!" they both exclaimed, which only seemed to amuse the jounin even more. He sat down with them.

Truthfully he had been watching them train. It impressed him very much how open they were with each other already. Naruto and Sasuke even went as far as to help Sakura with tree walking. He had even seen the control that the boys were doing and it had shocked the jounin. Those two exercises were high chunin in level and not to be trifled with unless you were ready for them. He would have to have a talk with Minabi and Itachi later about their training method, pushing academy students this hard was ridiculous! The fact that they were thriving under so much pressure was amazing, though. He wondered if Sakura would thrive as well. He definitely planned to see just how far he could push them after talking with their previous trainers. He looked at the three of them. They were completely ready to be genin. It wasn't a question of teamwork, they understood the concept perfectly and he couldn't be more proud of the three of them so far.

'_Should I even make them go through the test?'_ he thought debating in his mind if he should just let them through. Making a decision he smiled at his new genin.


	7. D Ranked Missions and Such

**A/N- Alright guys this is chapter seven. Hope you guys enjoy it and review! :) **

"Alright you three, normally this is where I give you a test on teamwork. I'd put you against each other to see if you have what it takes to be a team and work together in any situation. However I've been watching the three of you interact since you became genin and I'm very impressed. You three have started acting as a team since you were assigned and that never happens. Naruto, you offered your other two teammates lunch yesterday and that was the first step. Sakura, today you asked your teammates to help you train and they did, even going as far as to help you learn a new technique. That was the second step. The third step is to see how well you do in a battle situation as a team. We are going to forego your final genin exam. You three have passed my test!" the silver haired jonin explained looking at them. He let the information sink in.

"Wahooo! I'm finally a genin!" Naruto exclaimed after he realized what Kakashi said. "So does this mean that we can start missions today Kakashi sensei?" he asked.

The other two of his teammates were just as excited as he was, they just didn't blurt it out. _'Yes! One step closer to my goal'_ Sasuke though and Sakura was thinking along the same lines.

Kakashi laughed at Naruto's expense before returning to his normal serious self. "Whether we start on missions today actually depends on the three of you. You have all passed the test to become genin, but I want to see what your skill levels are. Instead of my usual bell test, you will come at me with all that you have, as a team. I will assess you all as a team and individually, and then if there is enough time left in the day we can start missions." Kakashi smiled and said. "When I say start I want you to come at me like you want to kill me. If you don't you won't even hit me."

Naruto was surprised by what the jonin wanted them to do. He didn't want to accidentally kill his sensei on the first day! Sakura and Sasuke just listened and waited for Kakashi to give to signal for them to start.

Finally the jonin grinned.

"Start." He said simply.

The three genin disappeared into the forest to formulate a plan. _'Well they all know how to hide, that's good at least'_ Kakashi thought.

With Naruto, the green eyed boy was hidden behind a tree to the front and left of Kakashi. He knew that Sasuke would come to him after failing to attack Kakashi on his own. His older brother had suggested that they split up and act like they were on their own. Sakura had come up with most of the plan surprisingly. She told them that Kakashi would most likely expect them to attack as a team since they were already working well together. The plan was perfect. Sasuke would attack Kakashi on his own and distract him while Sakura and Naruto set up traps that they would lead him into later.

Sakura was setting up a kunai trap that would be tripped as soon as Kakashi stepped foot into the forest. "Alright Naruto you're up, I've set up three traps around here. I'll show them to you and you can get to work on your own" Sakura said. She showed him where all of her traps were and then Naruto got to work on his own.

Meanwhile Sasuke was just about ready to attack Kakashi. They had agreed to wait about five minutes so that Kakashi could search for them a little. '_Alright here goes!'_ he thought to himself as he jumped out of the bush he was in. He threw three kunai and five shuriken which the jonin dodged easily. He got close enough to kick at Kakashi's head but his leg was caught and he was thrown away from Kakashi making the boy spin on his other leg. Sasuke regained his balance and sent a kick to Kakashi's knees. The man jumped up dodging the kick. That was when Sasuke noticed that Kakashi wasn't even looking at him!

The silver haired jonin was reading some orange book! _'What the hell? How can he dodge my attacks while reading that? Alright if you want to mock me then I'll throws something stronger your way!' _Sasuke started to go through hand signs.

"Fire style: fireball jutsu!" he yelled and threw kunai and shuriken into the fireball which was aimed right for the silver haired man that he was up against. The jonin smirked. '_So he knows fire style jutsu, I'll bet that they both know some of them'_ he thought and easily dodged the medium sized fireball.

With the other two, they were finally ready to enact the rest of their plan so Naruto told Sakura to hide behind something. "Shadow clone jutsu" he whispered and sent two clones to go help Sasuke and signal him that it was time. They exited the forest and sent shuriken at the silver haired jonin which he dodged. Sasuke noticed what had happen and knew that his teammates were ready for him.

He threw three kunai at Kakashi and then ran into the forest as did the two clones. '_Hmm this is obviously a trap, but I'll bite'_ the jonin thought and ran after them. When he got inside the forest about ten feet he hit a trip wire and had to dodge a dozen shuriken sent flying at him from behind. He went to the left dodging them all and hit another trap, this one sent kunai flying at him from the right. He decided that going forward was not the best option so he went backward this time to dodge and hit yet another trap.

'_Screw this I'm dodging for my life here, time to bring them all out in the open'_ he thought and quickly got himself out of the forest. The three new genin all thought at the same time, '_Damn guess we go to plan b,_' and followed the jonin.

Soon Naruto was aiming a kick to the jonin's head while Sasuke was aiming at his feet. He surprised them both by catching their feet. Sakura took this chance to throw six kunai at Kakashi from behind. _'Shit those will hit me if I don't do something'_ he thought and threw the boys back before jumping straight in the air. He looked down and saw that the two boys were doing hand signs.

"Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu!" Sasuke said before blowing a smaller ball of fire at the jonin. "Wind style: Air Bullet!" Naruto yelled surprising the jonin! He shot a compressed ball of air not at Kakashi but at the ball of fire. It sped the fireball up and made it hotter. It flew at Kakashi faster than he anticipated it would. It was inches from Kakashi before he used a substitution to get away. He was still reading his book when he landed on the ground a few feet from all of them. Sakura was about to throw kunai at him before he said, "that's enough you three, you all did very well. Nice teamwork with that distraction and those traps. Who came up with the plan?"

They all collapsed onto the ground in sitting positions glad that it was finally over. Sasuke was breathing heavy and so was Sakura. Naruto was his normal ball of energy.

"Well Kakashi-sensei, Sakura came up with the plan but we all contributed to parts of it. I told them I'd be the decoy and Naruto came up with the plan if you left the forest early." Sasuke said surprising Sakura and Kakashi. Kakashi smiled at the boy's willingness to be part of a team, at the fact that they all thought in a very team oriented way.

He looked at Sakura. "What was the plan exactly Sakura?" he asked.

"Well we knew that you would destroy us in a straight up fight. You are a jonin after all, so I decided to try and catch you in multiple traps that would either leave you maimed or dead. I knew it was the only way to get a hit on you. Sasuke was to distract you until Naruto and I got the traps ready. Then Naruto would send two clones to signal Sasuke and to lure you into the forest. You only hit three of the seven traps we laid though Kakashi-sensei." She stated confidently. Kakashi was surprised at her forethought. It looked like she would be a good strategist for this team.

He looked at Naruto."Naruto what was your plan B? I noticed that you used a wind style jutsu to accelerate Sasuke's fireball. Can you combine any other moves with him?"

Naruto grinned. "Well I also knew that any straight up fight, especially in the open would be hopeless. So we needed to get you into the air. We had planned to kick you at the same time so that you would jump, but you caught our feet and Sakura had to pick up the slack by throwing those kunai at you. Finally when you jumped I knew that you wouldn't be able to dodge an attack by normal means. So I told Sasuke to use a small fireball so that I could speed it up and catch you off guard. You used substitution like I thought you would. After that Sakura would provide long ranged support and Sasuke and I would throw every jutsu we had at you, hoping that one of them would hit. Sasuke and I have larger chakra reserves thanks to training, so he could go on for more than a few jutsu and because of my friend I could go on for days. Sooner or later you would have been hit Kakashi-sensei. Yeah we have one more that we've mastered but we wouldn't have used it on a comrade. It's way too dangerous for that." Sakura wondered what he had meant by his friend but decided to keep quiet about it for now.

"Hahaha, well you're right about the fact that sooner or later I'd have been hit, but don't ever plan to exhaust yourself like that again. Your plan was very good until you said that you would throw jutsu at me. I realize that it was the end of your plan and not very well thought out by you, but you must never plan to use everything. Work smarter, not harder Naruto. Just because you have crazy reserves doesn't mean that you need to use them all up. If you had thought about it the three of you could have cornered me after I landed from the substitution. It wouldn't have been hard to hit me then, with attacks coming from all directions I would have been hard pressed to dodge them. You see Naruto?" The green eyed boy nodded before the jonin continued.

"You three did very well in that fight. Sakura you are very smart, you'll be the main strategist for this team, when we need a plan it will be your job to be able to think of one on the spot. You will also be the medic ninja, I heard that you know a few low level healing jutsus. I will work on getting you some more to learn. Also it wouldn't be a bad idea to learn some more genjutsu, because of their eyes the boys will most likely be good with genjutsu as well. If you all three can learn to combine and layer your genjutsu, then they will be ten times as powerful as they would be if layered by one ninja. Naruto and Sasuke you will be our heavy hitters. You both know fire style jutsu and Naruto you know a wind style. Sasuke I know from training you that you know a lightning style jutsu and that you both have high affinities for these styles. You will most likely not need to learn any more fire style jutsus, I want you to concentrate now on learning jutsu of your higher affinities. I can help you with your lightning affinity Sasuke, and I have a few jutsu for you and your wind affinity Naruto. But when it comes to mastering the element we will have to find you a teacher. I'm getting a bit ahead of myself, guys. This will be what you will be working on until you all become chunin, which will be a long ways from now. For now I want us to concentrate on getting better as a team and strengthening ourselves. Sakura, you need the most work in this area. I want you to go home with the boys tonight. They will give you something that we will talk about tomorrow, they know what I'm talking about."

He said pointing to his thigh so that they knew he was talking about their resistance seals. Naruto wondered if he would have to tell Sakura about Kyuubi. They had just become friends and he didn't want to have to lose her now. The green eyed boy had started to think that her intelligence was awesome, especially after she had come up with that plan. "It's around one so we have time for a couple missions. Let's go you three." Kakashi's long winded talk left them all wondering what would be coming in the next few months. They had all hoped to get stronger under Kakashi, and from what he was telling them they knew that he would make them very strong.

-NUTPS-

With Itachi, the clan head had wanted to get some time alone with Minabi so that they could work on his eyes some more. He told Naruto in the morning to leave a clone with some of Minabi chakra with him so that he could train. The two of them were in the back yard and Minabi was explaining to Itachi that he hadn't had the time to talk to the raven haired man about the scroll with the eyes abilities that he had given him four years ago.

"Too much has been happening and we haven't had the chance to talk about them given the fact that you've been out on missions almost constantly. You need to give yourself time to rest Itachi. I know that you regret what you did but you can't run from it." The fourth look alike told him.

Over the years all of the Uchiha had become accustomed to having Minabi around and even liked him. None, expect Naruto, was closer to the fox than Itachi though. Minabi had taken it upon himself to be Itachi's sensei and friend after what happened with the clan. They spent day's together training, and sometimes they wouldn't even sleep. This wasn't surprising to the other Uchiha though. They knew about what Itachi and Shisui went through every time their heads hit a pillow to fall asleep. The Uchiha home was wracked with screaming on most nights, even now. Shisui had Miko to comfort him, and she did well for the most part, but Itachi would relive that night over and over in his dreams. He never dreamt of anything else and it was starting to affect his health.

The man hardly ever slept anymore, and when he did he made sure to put a sound barrier up around his room. He didn't want Naruto and Sasuke to know what he went through, but they knew. They knew because they went through something similar, just not as horrific.

Some nights when Naruto or Sasuke were sleeping they would dream of walking through the old empty Uchiha compound. The walls were bloodier every time they had the dream. Lately the boys hadn't been having the nightmares though. It's been almost a year for them.

"Yes sensei, I know. I just can't bear the thought of seeing their faces every night. They haunt me no matter what I do. I keep busy because I have less time to sleep, so that I don't dream. You know that. It's been four years and I still dream the same dream every night." Itachi said with sadness in his eyes. Minabi knew that his student was in an immense amount of emotional pain, but he just didn't know what to do about it. "I know Itachi, but if you don't rest for at least a little while every so often you're going to run yourself into the ground." He said knowing that it had happened before.

_**-Flashback-**_

_It was two years ago on a night like any other. Itachi was supposed to come home tonight from his mission. The boys heard the door opening and rushed to meet their brother. They had missed him for the last month. He went out on another S-ranked mission by himself as usual. What surprised them was that it wasn't just Itachi at the door. An ANBU was with him, holding his limp form up. "He passed out from exhaustion in the hokages office after giving a mission report. He needs to rest for a few days, but he should be fine." The ANBU let Shisui and Miko take him. They carried him to his bedroom and let him sleep._

_He slept completely in peace for the next two whole days. There were no nightmares._

_His brothers and the rest of the family were worried the entire time he was asleep. They decided that they would have a talk with him about the carelessness he showed for his own life. When he woke up they were all standing there by his bedside table, even Minabi was there. _

"_Itachi we need to talk," Shisui told him and proceeded to scold him like a little child about what he was doing. _

"_You cannot disregard your life like that Itachi! You have this clan and you're brothers to take care of and we worry about you every time you go off on a mission, we don't want to see you run yourself into the ground like that! Please be more careful!" Shisui finished with a worried look on his face._

_Itachi was silent for a few minute. Then he spoke._

"_I'm sorry you guys. I didn't realize that I was pushing myself so hard; I'll try not to let it happen again. I know how much we all mean to each other after what happened." He looked down, and told himself then and there that he would never worry his family so badly again._

_**-Flashback end-**_

Minabi remembered it as if it were yesterday.

"You don't do that to them Itachi, you need to take it easy for this week of training that you've taken off, and you know it." He said to the raven haired man who he'd come to know as one of his only true friends. He and Naruto were very close; they had become very good friends and comrades over the years. Itachi was different though. Minabi had decided to take the man under his wing and teach him everything he could about the eyes that had been gifted to him. They were the only ones able to see through those eyes. "Now, when you unlocked the third tomoe in each eye, what did you notice?" he asked Itachi. He knew the man wanted to change the subject back to training.

Itachi thought for a moment. "Well I've started to be able to see into the chakra network, I don't just see natures and outlines anymore. I'm able to see tenketsu; I'm sure that if I learned the style of jyuuken, I could shut and open them just as byakugan wielders do. I've also noticed that my chakra reserves are increasing with each tomoe. I'd say that I'm on par with Kakashi Hatake now, even though I'm eight years his junior." Itachi finished, knowing full well that the fox could see far more than he could. Itachi was more and more driven each time he unlocked a set of tomoe to master even more of the eyes' powers. He knew that he had a long way to go though."

The fourth look-alike smiled.

"Good Itachi, you are right your reserves are increasing and will continue to until you master the second ring. Each set of tomoe will increase your reserves by about a tenth. When you master the second ring, you will most likely have around the same chakra as the Hokage does. This is of course if you don't work to increase your reserves. Every set of new tomoe will make your chakra harder and harder to control, because it is being increased so exponentially. You must work at control every day, just as Naruto does. He actually has around the same chakra as you do now, because of me and the fourths seal. Now about the new ability you've gained, there are a few things you need to know. First, with time and training you will be able to activate and deactivate this ability at will. Second, you will start to see people's chakra flowing differently in different situations. Now that you can almost completely see the full chakra network, you will be able to tell whether someone is channeling chakra and of what nature. This will help you greatly in your battles; this ability is also different in that way than the byakugan. They are only able to see that their opponent is channeling chakra, so they only know to expect something, and not what to expect. You will start to be able to predict your opponent's moves, at the instant that they start channeling the chakra for the jutsu. You will also be able to read their body language and predict what hand signs they will make, before they make them. The third thing you must know is that this ability is not yet fully developed. At the next stage you will be able to as you said, open and close the tenketsu of your opponents. It will not be in the way you expect though, you see the Hyuuga are able to do what they do with the chakra network only because they have perfect control of their chakra and are able to shoot chakra into their opponent's network. I'm sure you already knew this, but what I'm getting at is that you won't have to. When you first start to master this ability you will, but once you master the second ring of tomoe, you only need to will the tenketsu closed with your eyes. The chakra in them is strong enough that your opponent's tenketsu will close without touch, but with sending a minimal amount of chakra through them to your opponent. Now you have a long way to go until you reach this point, but I thought that you should know. I also want to amend my earlier statement to you; you are not to experiment with creating new abilities until you do reach this point. It could be very dangerous for you. You must know chakra in and out and understand it completely before even attempting something like creating an ability with these eyes. Is that understood?" The fox finally finished his lecture with a tone of complete seriousness. Itachi would not question it.

"Yes sensei, but can I ask you something? Everyone that I've met so far has either one or two colored hues to their chakra, but now when I look at your chakra, it isn't red. It was before; an orangish red that I thought was just unique to you because you're the Kyuubi. But now I can see that it's not red, but snow white. I've been wondering about it all day. What does it mean." Itachi asked after thinking about what Minabi had said and about his new ability to see into the chakra network.

Minabi laughed and told him, "I will tell you what it means, but not just yet. I want you to get to the first of the five tomoes in your second ring before I explain it to you. It will be easier that way. I'm surprised that you haven't asked me why the scroll I gave you before was almost completely blank. It has been four years after all."

Itachi had a blank look on his face and then answered, "Oh that, I just figured that you would train me in using these eyes yourself. You are the original owner after all. Also the one line that it did have in it 'ask anything about the eyes and I'll kill you' was pretty self-explanatory." Itachi smirked at the man. "Although now that I think about it you couldn't kill me, even if you wanted to. You've told me yourself that using the shadow clone as a body significantly weakens your eyes and that it would be stupid of you to get into any actual fight unless you were fighting from inside Naruto. Speaking of Naruto when are you planning to start teaching him to use your chakra? I know it can't be that easy."

The fourth lookalike face palmed and then burst out laughing. "I'm going to wait until I've met all of the other genin before I start, I wanted to give him at least a little time to get used to being a ninja before I dropped that little harsh truth on him. If something happens before then I will take action. I may not be evil but my chakra has a very malevolent pull to it." He replied seriously.

-NUTPS-

The three new genin of team seven had had a very interesting first mission. They were charged with catching a runaway cat that the fire lord's wife had lost. Kakashi told them to follow the cat so that they could try and find a pattern in its movements, so they decided to split up. Naruto and Sakura took the west side of the village and Sasuke went with one of Naruto's clones to search the east side.

Soon they had all searched everywhere they could think of. Finally Sasuke dispelled the clone of Naruto's with a kunai. "Sakura, wait. Sasuke just dispelled my clone. He told the clone where he was and that he found our target!"

Sakura smiled and asked Naruto where they were headed. "To the forest on the outskirts of the village. That's where Sasuke is." Naruto replied and started building hopping with Sakura close behind him. Soon they found Sasuke and it was time for their real mission to start. They started to follow the cat wherever he went.

After almost three hours of following that god forsaken cat Naruto finally had had enough. "Alright you two, we've followed him enough, lets capture the damned thing already!" he exclaimed. The other two nodded thinking the same thing. "Kakashi-sensei we're going in for the capture now. Sasuke will radio in after its finished." Naruto said, and they got into position around the cat.

"You guys ready?" he asked his teammates.

"Yes" they both said, so Naruto gave the signal and they three jumped in for the capture. After wrestling with the thing unnecessarily for ten whole minutes Sasuke radioed in to Kakashi. "We've got him sensei. The red ribbon on the right ear confirms that he's our target"

Kakashi replied, "Alright you three bring him to the Hokage tower and I will meet you there. Good work."

When they all arrived at the Hokage tower Naruto was holding the cat. "What happened to you Naruto you have scratches everywhere?" Kakashi asked.

"This damned cat happened! He scratched me every chance he got. Took ten minutes just to capture him." Naruto said also mumbling something about a demon cat. Kakashi laughed and asked them what they found out on their reconnaissance mission.

This time Sakura spoke up, "Well he likes to hang around the forests of Konoha and the back alleys. There really isn't any pattern to where he goes, but I think that that is where people should start when he runs away again."

"Good job, I'll be sure to put that in the mission report." Kakashi said and they started walking into the tower. When they got to the hokages office, the Hokage congratulated them on a job well done.

"What took you three so long?" Iruka asked them. He was acting as the hokages assistant for handling missions that day. Kakashi explained that he had them run reconnaissance and that what they found out would be in the mission report. Iruka smiled knowing that it would help for when the cat ran away again. They gave the cat to the fire lord's wife who was a plump woman. She practically crushed the cat as soon as it was in her hands. The three genin kind of felt sorry for the little demon after that, '_well now we know why it runs away so much'_ the three of them thought.

"Good job on your first mission. Here is your mission pay." The Hokage paid them for their first completed mission. "You don't really have time for another one today, but I'm sure that you can get a few more done tomorrow."

"Yes! Finally finished our first mission! Good job you two!" Naruto said and high fived his teammates. Sakura blushed, and Naruto thought it was weird, but then Kakashi spoke up. "Let's go and get a little training in you three."

Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke all nodded and followed the silver haired jonin out of the tower. The Hokage and Iruka smiled at Naruto's antics. The four members of team seven arrived at the training ground that they were accustomed to and Kakashi spoke again. "That was very good working you three, for this training you will all be doing chakra control. Naruto and Sasuke I know that you are both well beyond your years so you can do the exercises that you were doing earlier today. Sakura you're on tree walking. Exhaust yourself doing it so that your reserves start getting bigger. Tomorrow you will have something new that will make it harder." Kakashi said and they all got started. Sasuke and Naruto worked on their respective exercises and Sakura worked on tree walking. An hour later Sakura started to get tired so Kakashi told them to head home. Bythat time it was dark already.

"Sakura, Kakashi-sensei told us to take you home with us to give you something, so follow me" Naruto said and the boys started towards their home. Sakura hid her blush at the thought of going home with Naruto and followed them all the way to their home.

When they arrived at the door Naruto was wracked with anxiety. He didn't want to tell Sakura about the Kyuubi just yet. He'd thought of something that would cover it up for a while, but he didn't know how long it would last. He opened the door and led his brother and teammate inside. Sasuke also wondered how his brother wanted to go about this. '_I guess I'll just follow his lead on this one'_ he thought and walked into the living room. Itachi Shisui and Minabi were waiting for them.

"Hey boys how did the test go? Did you get to go on your first mission?" Itachi spoke up asking them.

"It was awesome brother; Kakashi passed us without even testing us because we already knew how to be a team. We still fought him but it wasn't too hard. He didn't really attack or anything. He would have destroyed us if he had. We got to go on our first mission." Sasuke said telling him all about their first mission with the cat. Itachi laughed at the boy's expense knowing that all new genin had to go through the mission that they had described. It was a sort of hazing.

He noticed Sakura and said, "and who might this young girl be?"

He knew who she was though. He had been told by Kakashi about the team and how they did that day. Kakashi visited him right before they arrived.

"Oh, this is Sakura, brother. She's our teammate, and she's really smart!" Naruto said smiling at his brother. Itachi smiled back and greeted Sakura who was struggling to hide her blush from Naruto's comment about her intelligence. She didn't want the boys to know that she just liked Naruto when they were assigned as a team together so she insisted as soon as she could that she liked them both! She really hoped that Naruto and Sasuke didn't find out anytime soon. She didn't know how Naruto felt about her and didn't want to be rejected by him anymore. That talk four years ago really did a number on her and she didn't know if she would be able to deal with another rejection like that.

She smiled at Itachi and said, "I'm Sakura; it's really nice to meet you Itachi. Are you the one that taught them so much? They are so strong!"

Itachi started to chuckle. "No actually I cannot take all of the credit for that. I definitely had a hand in it, but their real trainer was this man." Itachi gestured towards Minabi and looked at Naruto knowing he wanted to tell her who he was.

"Sakura this is Minabi and he is the one we came here for you to see. He is a friend of the family that we have been learning from for a while now. He is going to apply a seal to your body that's going to make it harder for you to move. In time you'll get used to it though." Naruto said and Minabi came over. He smiled in Sakura's direction noticing that her eyes kept glancing toward Naruto.

"Alright Sakura, I need to know where you want this seal. It should be somewhere easily reachable but also concealable by clothing." She thought about it for a while and the decided to put the seal on her left forearm. She told Minabi that she would start wearing an armband to cover it. He agreed and started drawing the seal onto her arm. Soon it was done and he activated it. Immediately she felt the effects. It was like a weight was added to her whole body. She knew it would take a good long while to get used to it, but even now she knew that it would make her stronger! She moved around for a while and started getting used to the added weight being there. It was still hard to move but she dealt with it.

"Thank you very much Minabi. I can tell that this will help me get stronger! If that's all I guess I'll go home now." She said, but Itachi stopped her.

"Why don't you stay for dinner Sakura? There's plenty of food and I'm sure that my brothers would enjoy your company for the night." Itachi said offering her a seat at the table.

"Yeah Sakura it'd be great if you'd stay." Naruto said smiling. She struggled not to blush and smiled back.

"Ok I'll stay, thanks you guys!" she said and sat at the table with everyone.

Shisui was out on a mission and Miko had prepared dinner for them all. They were having steak and mashed potatoes tonight. It looked amazing to Sakura.

They all sat down and started eating. Minabi had disappeared and Sakura wondered why he wasn't eating with them, it was very strange to her. They all ate slowly, enjoying the conversation.

They talked about the new team and how they liked being ninja. They talked about Sakura and her family. Naruto asked her many questions about her home and life before she became a genin. They found out that her parents were civilians that worked in the market district. Her mom was on the civilian council. She told them about her training and that it was Naruto who made her see that she would need to get stronger. Itachi had smiled when she said that. Soon they had finished eating and it was time for Sakura to go home.

"I'll walk you home, if you want." Naruto offered. He smiled when she said yes; she bid his family goodnight and head out the door with Naruto behind her. They started walking towards the market district. "So how do you like being on our team?" Naruto asked.

"Well it's definitely interesting. I can tell that Kakashi-sensei is going to be pushing us to our limits. That's something I'm happy about. I really want to get stronger. You made me realize what I want to be you know Naruto." She told him and smiled.

He was taken aback by that. He didn't know that what he said had made that much of an impact on her. "I'm glad that I could help you figure out what your goals are Sakura!" he said. Before long they had arrived at her house and it was time to say goodbye. "I'll see you in the morning for training Sakura. It was really great having you for dinner. Maybe you could come over again sometime." He said as they walked up to her door.

She had a big smile on her face when she replied and he couldn't see it because it was dark, but she was blushing like crazy. "I'd really like that Naruto! Your family is great! I'll see you tomorrow."

She ran inside and left him at the door wondering what in the world was wrong with her. He shrugged and walked home. It was time for bed and he was exhausted after the day's activities.

He laid down on the bed and was about to fall asleep when Minabi made his presence known.

'**Kit, what do you think about that girl Sakura? She seems to hold you with a great amount of respect. I can tell that you've made a big impact on her life." **Minabi said from within Naruto's mind. He had been watching since dinner started.

'_Well I think that she's working hard to prove herself to be a strong kunoichi and I definitely respect that. I don't really know her that well yet though.'_ Naruto replied honestly. He had been thinking about what he said to her back then. He thought that maybe he could have been a little nicer.

'**Why don't you try and get to know her better? You might find that you like her'** Minabi said grinning from within Naruto. He knew of course that the pink haired girl liked Naruto and he liked her for Naruto. She seemed like a fiery girl. He knew that she would need that fire to keep up with the kits own fiery personality.

'_Alright I will, thanks Minabi'_ Naruto said and cut the mental connection between them so that he could get some sleep. Soon he was sleeping peacefully.

The next few days went by very quickly. The team met every morning to train and go through their exercises. Sakura had finally gotten used to the added weight and was able to move freely again. After training they went on missions. They usually did three in a day before going back to training ground seven and doing their evening training. During their missions Naruto had approached Sakura a few times, trying to get to know her more. He found that he really liked spending time with her, but had no idea what that meant.

Sasuke was indifferent about his brothers growing closeness to the pinkette. They spent a lot of their time together and he was starting to feel left out. He had started to get quieter and quieter because of his growing loneliness. Watching Naruto and Sakura get along so well made him want to go and see one of his good friends. The team's time was always spent together though, and the last few days Sasuke had started feeling like a third wheel. He wanted to go and see Hinata, but never had any time. He wondered how she was doing. Naruto of course wondered what was wrong with his brother. He had no idea that his growing closeness with Sakura had such an impact on Sasuke until one afternoon. They were all training and Sakura was just starting out on chakra hopping. Naruto was helping her out, giving her tips when Sasuke exploded on them both.

"Why do you two spend so much time together? It's like you're inseparable! Can't you just leave each other alone?!" he yelled across the training field surprising them both. Kakashi saw and stepped over to Sasuke.

"What's wrong Sasuke? Naruto is only trying to help Sakura with the control exercise." Kakashi told him.

"They spend all their time training together and basically leave me on my own. Ever since that dinner last week they've gotten closer and closer and I feel like I'm a third wheel for the two of them. I can't go another day like this!" Sasuke exclaimed.

"Guys come over here." The two others walked over and Kakashi continued. "I think it's best if we all take a few days off starting tomorrow. Go have fun with your friends and we will resume training and missions on Monday." Kakashi knew that Sasuke was feeling left out. He thought that maybe some time away from the team would clear up the issues that he had.

Sakura asked if Naruto wanted to go to lunch, but he said that he wanted to talk to his brother. "I'll see you tomorrow Sakura, you're doing really good!" He smiled and then ran off after Sasuke who had left as soon as Kakashi had told him it was alright to leave.

"Sasuke wait!" Naruto yelled after his brother who was running in the direction of their home. Finally catching up with him Naruto asked, "What's wrong Sasuke? You know you can talk to me, I'm your brother." Sasuke slowed down and then stopped.

"Nothing Naruto, just leave me alone." He said harshly.

Naruto was surprised at his brother's harsh tone. "Fine then Sasuke. I'll see you at home I guess."

He ran the rest of the way home wondering what in the world had Sasuke so messed up. He got there a little before Sasuke and went inside. Itachi was there waiting and greeted him. "Hey Naruto you're home early."

"Yeah Sasuke went off on Sakura and I for some reason, so Kakashi-sensei said we could have a couple days off." He told his brother who looked concerned, he would have to talk with Sasuke and see what was wrong. He wondered what in the world it could be. Naruto told him he was going to his room to talk to Minabi. As soon as he left the room Sasuke walked in the door.

**A/n- I'm about to be in the middle of moving again, so I might not be able to make next weeks update on Wednesday and this week I was sick. Hopefully I will be able to, but if not I'll try to update as soon as possible. Hopefully I can get back on track soon :)**


End file.
